What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2008-4279

• Severity: medium (CVSS 6.8 v2.0)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2008-10-06 · updated 2026-06-16
• Weakness: CWE-264

Description

The CPU hardware emulation for 64-bit guest operating systems in VMware Workstation 6.0.x before 6.0.5 build 109488 and 5.x before 5.5.8 build 108000; Player 2.0.x before 2.0.5 build 109488 and 1.x before 1.0.8; Server 1.x before 1.0.7 build 108231; and ESX 2.5.4 through 3.5 allows authenticated guest OS users to gain additional guest OS privileges by triggering an exception that causes the virtual CPU to perform an indirect jump to a non-canonical address.

Affected products

• VMware ESX: from 2.5.4 through 3.5
• VMware Player: from 1.0 before 1.0.8; from 2.0 before 2.0.5 — fixed in 1.0.8, 2.0.5
• VMware Server: from 1.0 before 1.0.8 — fixed in 1.0.8
• VMware Workstation: from 5.5 before 5.5.8; from 6.0 before 6.0.5 — fixed in 5.5.8, 6.0.5

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: VMware Player 1.0.8, 2.0.5; VMware Server 1.0.8; VMware Workstation 5.5.8, 6.0.5. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• http://lists.grok.org.uk/pipermail/full-disclosure/2008-October/064860.html
• http://marc.info/?l=bugtraq&m=122331139823057&w=2
• http://secunia.com/advisories/32157
• http://secunia.com/advisories/32179
• http://secunia.com/advisories/32180
• http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/497041/100/0/threaded
• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/31569
• http://www.securitytracker.com/id?1020991
• http://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2008-0016.html
• http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2008/2740
• https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/45668
• https://oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A5929

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