CVE-2012-3569

critical

Published 2012-11-14 · Modified 2026-04-29

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CVSS v3

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CVSS v4 NEW

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not yet in upstream

VIR risk

10.0

Description

Format string vulnerability in VMware OVF Tool 2.1 on Windows, as used in VMware Workstation 8.x before 8.0.5, VMware Player 4.x before 4.0.5, and other products, allows user-assisted remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted OVF file.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood

20%

Patch ETA

—

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

✚ Propose a mitigation on Community → Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here with source_tier=community-verified.

Exploits

Public proof-of-concept code below. AS-IS, for defenders and authorised testing only.

Exploit-DB

EDB-24461 remote windows verified

Metasploit · 2013-02-12

VMware OVF Tools - Format String (Metasploit) (2)

Source code queued for fetch — refresh in a moment.

EDB-24460 remote windows verified

Metasploit · 2013-02-06

VMware OVF Tools - Format String (Metasploit) (1)

Source code queued for fetch — refresh in a moment.

Metasploit modules

exploit_windows/browser/ovftool_format_string rank 300

VMWare OVF Tools Format String Vulnerability

Source fetch failed: fetch_error — view the original via the link above.

exploit_windows/fileformat/ovf_format_string rank 300

VMWare OVF Tools Format String Vulnerability

Source fetch failed: fetch_error — view the original via the link above.

Application impact

Vendor	Product	Versions
vmware	ovf_tool	`2.1`
vmware	workstation	`8.0`
vmware	workstation	`8.0.0.18997`
vmware	workstation	`8.0.1`
vmware	workstation	`8.0.1.27038`
vmware	workstation	`8.0.2`
vmware	workstation	`8.0.3`
vmware	workstation	`8.0.4`
vmware	player	`4.0`
vmware	player	`4.0.0.18997`
vmware	player	`4.0.1`
vmware	player	`4.0.2`
vmware	player	`4.0.3`
vmware	player	`4.0.4`

References

CWEs

CWE-134

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.