VMware warns customers to immediately patch “critical” Aria network software holes

VMware is advising customers to upgrade or patch its Aria for Network Operations software because of potential security problems.

VMware Aria is the vendor’s overarching multi-cloud management platform that integrates previously separate VMware services such as vRealize Automation, vRealize Operations, vRealize Network Insight, and CloudHealth onto a single Aria Hub console, which provides centralized views and controls and lets customers see and manage the entire multi-cloud environment.

The vulnerabilities are in the Aria Operations for Networks component which includes the ability help run applications more smoothly by finding the cause of delay based on TCP traffic latency and retransmissions by triggering alerts on the applications dashboard.

Specifically the company  said Aria Operations for Networks contains two vulnerabilities: an Authentication Bypass weakness due to a lack of unique cryptographic key generation which has a “critical severity” Common Vulnerability Score (CVS) threat score of 9.8 out of 10 and an arbitrary file write vulnerability which has a CVS threat score of 7.2. 

With the authentication weakness, a malicious actor with network access to Aria Operations for Networks could bypass Secure Sockets Shell (SSH) authentication to gain access to the Aria Operations for Networks Command Line Interface, which could unleash all manner of control problems, VMware stated.

With the file write vulnerability an authenticated attacker with administrative access to VMware Aria Operations for Networks can write files to arbitrary locations resulting in remote code execution, VMware stated.

VMware warned that Aria Operations for Networks On-Prem versions 6.2 / 6.3 / 6.4 / 6.5.1 / 6.6 / 6.7 / 6.8 / 6.9 / 6.10 are impacted by the vulnerabilities but that upgrading to version 6.11 fixes the problems. Customers can also download patches for the vulnerabilities here.