CVE-2019-5539

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
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: 2019-12-23 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-427

Description

VMware Workstation (15.x prior to 15.5.1) and Horizon View Agent (7.10.x prior to 7.10.1 and 7.5.x prior to 7.5.4) contain a DLL hijacking vulnerability due to insecure loading of a DLL by Cortado Thinprint. Successful exploitation of this issue may allow attackers with normal user privileges to escalate their privileges to administrator on a Windows machine where Workstation or View Agent is installed.

Affected products

VMware Horizon View Agent: from 7.5.0 before 7.5.4; from 7.10.0 before 7.10.1 — fixed in 7.10.1, 7.5.4
VMware Workstation: from 15.0.0 before 15.5.1 — fixed in 15.5.1
VMware Horizon View Agent: from 7.10.x prior through 7.10.1; 7.5.x prior 7.5.4
VMware Workstation: from 15.x prior through 15.5.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: VMware Horizon View Agent 7.10.1, 7.5.4; VMware Workstation 15.5.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2019-5539 or the next vulnerability affects your stack