Coverage › CVE-2025-22225
CVE-2025-22225 Mapped Sigma
VMware ESXi Arbitrary Write Vulnerability
- Vendor / product
- VMware — ESXi
- Description (CISA)
- VMware ESXi contains an arbitrary write vulnerability. Successful exploitation allows an attacker with privileges within the VMX process to trigger an arbitrary kernel write leading to an escape of the sandbox.
- Added to KEV
- 2025-03-04
- Due date
- 2025-03-25
- Required action
- Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.
- Known ransomware use
- Known
- CWE
- CWE-123
- CISA notes
- https://support.broadcom.com/web/ecx/support-content-notification/-/external/content/SecurityAdvisories/0/25390
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-22225 - Elsewhere
- cve.org · NVD · CISA KEV · JSON
ATT&CK techniques · CTID Mappings Explorer, ATT&CK 16.1, KEV snapshot 2025-07-28
2 mapping objects across 2 techniques. exploitation technique states how the vulnerability is exploited; primary and secondary impact state what exploitation achieves. They are different claims and are labelled as such.
| Technique | Mapping type | CTID comment | Status in v19.2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation | exploitation technique | This vulnerability, present in VMWare ESXi, Workstation, and Fusion, allows an attacker with VMX process privileges to write in the kernel memory, triggering a sandbox escape. ref 1 · ref 2 · ref 3 · ref 4 |
live |
| T1611 Escape to Host | primary impact | This vulnerability, present in VMWare ESXi, Workstation, and Fusion, allows an attacker with VMX process privileges to write in the kernel memory, triggering a sandbox escape. ref 1 · ref 2 · ref 3 · ref 4 |
live |
Detection chain · ATT&CK Enterprise v19.2 detection strategies, analytics, log sources
T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation exploitation technique
- DET0514 Detection Strategy for Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
AN1419 WindowsDetects exploitation attempts targeting vulnerable kernel drivers or OS components, often followed by unusual process or token behavior.Tunable:
DriverNamePatternTimeWindowParentProcessPathAN1420 LinuxDetects escalation via vulnerable setuid binaries or kernel modules, often chained with unusual access to /proc/kallsyms or /dev/kmem.Tunable:SetUIDBinaryListTimeWindowEffectiveUIDThresholdAN1421 macOSDetects use of vulnerable kernel extensions or entitlements abused via setuid or AppleScript injection chains.Tunable:EntitlementListTimeWindowAN1422 ContainersDetects container breakout behavior via exploitation (e.g., DirtyPipe, CVE-2022-0847), followed by host OS interaction or escalated capability assignment.Tunable:NamespaceEscapePatternTimeWindow
Sigma rules tagged attack.t1068 (31)
Author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)
· 2019-11-20 (modified 2024-12-01) · logsource: product=windows category=process_creation · 02e0b2ea-a597-428e-b04a-af6a1a403e5c
Detects an exploitation attempt in which the UAC consent dialogue is used to invoke an Internet Explorer process running as LOCAL_SYSTEM
Author: Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
· 2022-08-18 (modified 2023-12-02) · logsource: product=windows category=driver_load · 05296024-fe8a-4baf-8f3d-9a5f5624ceb2
Detects loading of known malicious drivers via their hash.
Author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)
· 2021-10-09 (modified 2022-12-25) · logsource: product=linux service=auditd · 071d5e5a-9cef-47ec-bc4e-a42e34d8d0ed
Detects command line parameter very often used with coin miners
Author: Nisarg Suthar
· 2025-08-01 · logsource: product=windows category=process_creation · 0fdc7c7f-c690-4217-9ae3-31f5156eed72
Detects suspicious child processes created by CrushFTP. It could be an indication of exploitation of a RCE vulnerability such as CVE-2025-54309.
Author: Swachchhanda Shrawn Poudel (Nextron Systems)
· 2025-10-02 (modified 2026-03-31) · logsource: product=linux category=file_event · 10ac0730-c24e-4f4c-81f8-b13a1ac95a1d
Detects the creation of nsswitch.conf files in non-standard directories, which may indicate exploitation of CVE-2025-32463.
This vulnerability requires an attacker to create a nsswitch.conf in a directory that will be used during sudo chroot operations.
When sudo executes, it loads malicious shared libraries from user-controlled locations within the chroot environment,
potentially leading to arbitrary code execution and privilege escalation.
Author: @eyezuhk Isaac Fernandes
· 2025-02-19 · logsource: product=windows category=image_load · 17ce9373-2163-4a2c-90ba-f91e9ef7a8c1
Detects potentially suspicious loading of "ksproxy.ax", which may indicate an attempt to exploit CVE-2024-35250.
Author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)
· 2017-03-01 (modified 2025-03-17) · logsource: product=linux · 18b042f0-2ecd-4b6e-9f8d-aa7a7e7de781
Detects buffer overflow attempts in Unix system log files
Author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), oscd.community, Jonhnathan Ribeiro
· 2019-11-15 (modified 2021-11-27) · logsource: product=windows category=process_creation · 1c373b6d-76ce-4553-997d-8c1da9a6b5f5
Detects exploitation attempt of privilege escalation vulnerability via SetupComplete.cmd and PartnerSetupComplete.cmd described in CVE-2019-1378
Author: Roberto Rodriguez (Cyb3rWard0g), OTR (Open Threat Research), MSTIC
· 2021-10-15 (modified 2022-10-05) · logsource: product=linux category=process_creation · 21541900-27a9-4454-9c4c-3f0a4240344a
Rule to detect the use of the SCX RunAsProvider Invoke_ExecuteShellCommand to execute any UNIX/Linux command using the /bin/sh shell.
SCXcore, started as the Microsoft Operations Manager UNIX/Linux Agent, is now used in a host of products including
Microsoft Operations Manager, Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft Operations Management Suite.
Author: Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)
· 2025-06-06 · logsource: product=windows category=process_creation · 38a1ac5f-9c74-47d2-a345-dd6f5eb4e7c8
Detects the execution of SharpSuccessor, a tool used to exploit the BadSuccessor attack for privilege escalation in WinServer 2025 Active Directory environments.
Successful usage of this tool can let the attackers gain the domain admin privileges by exploiting the BadSuccessor vulnerability.
Author: Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
· 2022-10-03 (modified 2023-12-02) · logsource: product=windows category=driver_load · 39b64854-5497-4b57-a448-40977b8c9679
Detects loading of known malicious drivers via the file name of the drivers.
Author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)
· 2021-11-22 (modified 2022-12-25) · logsource: product=windows category=file_event · 3be82d5d-09fe-4d6a-a275-0d40d234d324
Detects signs of the exploitation of LPE CVE-2021-41379 that include an msiexec process that creates an elevation_service.exe file
Author: Gene Kazimiarovich
· 2026-04-30 · logsource: product=linux service=auditd · 474b415a-8b3d-4e6a-9f12-0d5c8a7b6e94
Detects creation of AF_ALG (Address Family 38) sockets via the socket() syscall.
AF_ALG is the Linux kernel crypto API interface. It is exploited in CVE-2026-31431
to achieve local privilege escalation via a buffer overflow in the AF_ALG AEAD
splice path that corrupts the page cache of SUID binaries.
Legitimate AF_ALG usage is rare and confined to specific crypto utilities and VPN
daemons using non-default kernel offload configurations.
Author: Gene Kazimiarovich
· 2026-05-09 · logsource: product=linux category=process_creation · 474b415a-d917-4f3b-8c62-9e1a0d5f7b48
Detects kernel auto-loading of the authencesn crypto module via modprobe
This occurs when user-space code creates an AF_ALG socket and binds the authencesn AEAD cipher
(e.g., authencesn(hmac(sha256),cbc(aes))). The kernel invokes modprobe to load the
crypto module. This is a key indicator of CVE-2026-31431 (Copy Fail) exploitation,
where the authencesn cipher is used to trigger a buffer overflow in the AF_ALG AEAD splice path,
corrupting the page cache of SUID binaries for local privilege escalation.
On Linux systems, modprobe is typically a symlink to kmod, so the process image will be /usr/bin/kmod (or /bin/kmod)
with 'modprobe' appearing in the command line.
Author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Zach Mathis
· 2020-01-15 (modified 2022-10-22) · logsource: product=windows service=application · 48d91a3a-2363-43ba-a456-ca71ac3da5c2
Detects events generated by user-mode applications when they call the CveEventWrite API when a known vulnerability is trying to be exploited.
MS started using this log in Jan. 2020 with CVE-2020-0601 (a Windows CryptoAPI vulnerability.
Unfortunately, that is about the only instance of CVEs being written to this log.
All 31 rules on the technique page →
T1611 Escape to Host primary impact
- DET0219 Detection Strategy for Escape to Host
AN0612 ContainersDetection of container escape attempts via bind mounts, privileged containers, or abuse of docker.sock. Defenders may observe anomalous volume mount configurations (e.g., hostPath to / or /proc), unexpected privileged container launches, or use of container administration commands to access host resources. These events typically correlate with subsequent process execution on the host outside of normal container isolation.docker:daemon
container create/start with privileged flag or host volume mount→ DC0072 Container Creationkubernetes:apiserverPod spec with hostPath or privileged securityContext→ DC0092 Volume ModificationTunable:AllowedHostPathsPrivilegedContainerThresholdAN0613 LinuxDetection of Linux container escape attempts via syscalls (unshare,keyctl,mount) or process execution outside container namespaces. Defenders may correlate unusual system calls from containerized processes with subsequent process creation on the host or modification of host resources.auditd:SYSCALLunshare, mount, keyctl, setns syscalls executed by containerized processes→ DC0021 OS API Executionlinux:Sysmonprocess creation events linked to container namespaces executing host-level binaries→ DC0032 Process CreationTunable:SyscallWhitelistTimeWindowAN0614 WindowsDetection of Windows container escape attempts by observing processes accessing host directories, symbolic link abuse, or privilege escalation attempts. Defenders may detect anomalous process execution with access to system-level directories outside of container boundaries.Tunable:RestrictedHostDirsAN0615 ESXiDetection of ESXi escape attempts by monitoring for anomalies in hypervisor logs such as unexpected VM operations, privilege escalation events, or attempts to load malicious kernel modules within the hypervisor environment.esxi:vmkernelVM exit/entry anomalies, unexpected hypercalls, or kernel module loading→ DC0031 Kernel Module LoadTunable:AllowedKernelModules
Sigma rules tagged attack.t1611 (2)
Author: Leo Tsaousis (@laripping)
· 2024-03-26 · logsource: product=kubernetes category=application service=audit · 402b955c-8fe0-4a8c-b635-622b4ac5f902
Detects creation of a container with a hostPath mount.
A hostPath volume mounts a directory or a file from the node to the container.
Attackers who have permissions to create a new pod in the cluster may create one with a writable hostPath volume and chroot to escape to the underlying node.
Author: Leo Tsaousis (@laripping)
· 2024-03-26 · logsource: product=kubernetes category=application service=audit · c5cd1b20-36bb-488d-8c05-486be3d0cb97
Detects the creation of a "privileged" container, an action which could be indicative of a threat actor mounting a container breakout attacks.
A privileged container is a container that can access the host with all of the root capabilities of the host machine. This allows it to view, interact and modify processes, network operations, IPC calls, the file system, mount points, SELinux configurations etc. as the root user on the host.
Various versions of "privileged" containers can be specified, e.g. by setting the securityContext.privileged flag in the resource specification, setting non-standard Linux capabilities, or configuring the hostNetwork/hostPID fields