CVE-2025-41245

Executive Summary

CVE-2025-41245 is an information disclosure vulnerability in VMware Aria Operations (formerly vRealize Operations). A malicious actor with non-administrative privileges can exploit this flaw to disclose credentials of other users within the same Aria Operations instance. The vulnerability carries a CVSS score of 4.9 (Medium), with a high impact on confidentiality but no impact on integrity or availability. The EPSS score is 0.0%, indicating no active exploitation in the wild at the time of analysis. No public proof-of-concept code or exploit templates are available. The vendor has not released a patch or official advisory, leaving affected systems in an unpatched state.

CVSS Breakdown & Threat Level

• CVSS Score: 4.9 (Medium)
• Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
• Attack Vector: Network
• Attack Complexity: Low
• Privileges Required: Low (non-administrative user)
• User Interaction: None
• Scope: Unchanged
• Confidentiality Impact: High
• Integrity Impact: None
• Availability Impact: None

The threat level is elevated due to the low privileges required and the high confidentiality impact. An attacker who gains a foothold as a low-privileged user can escalate their access by harvesting credentials of other users, potentially leading to full administrative compromise.

Deep Dive & Mechanics

VMware Aria Operations is a management and monitoring platform for virtualized environments. The vulnerability resides in the credential storage or retrieval mechanism, where a non-administrative user can access credentials belonging to other users. This likely occurs through an insecure API endpoint, misconfigured access controls, or improper session handling that does not enforce proper authorization checks.

The attack flow:

1. An attacker authenticates as a low-privileged user (e.g., a read-only operator).
2. The attacker sends crafted requests to an internal API or endpoint that returns user credentials.
3. The server fails to verify that the requesting user has permission to view those credentials.
4. The attacker receives the credentials in the response, enabling lateral movement or privilege escalation.

The vulnerability does not require any user interaction and can be exploited over the network, making it a significant risk in multi-tenant or shared Aria Operations deployments.

Vulnerable vs. Patched Code

No patched code is available. The vulnerable code likely involves an API handler that retrieves user credentials without proper authorization checks. A hypothetical vulnerable code snippet might look like:

# Vulnerable: No privilege check
@app.route('/api/credentials/<user_id>')
def get_credentials(user_id):
    creds = db.query("SELECT * FROM credentials WHERE user_id = ?", user_id)
    return jsonify(creds)

A patched version would enforce authorization:

# Patched: Check user privileges
@app.route('/api/credentials/<user_id>')
def get_credentials(user_id):
    if not current_user.is_admin() and current_user.id != user_id:
        abort(403)
    creds = db.query("SELECT * FROM credentials WHERE user_id = ?", user_id)
    return jsonify(creds)

Exploitation & Lab Setup

Red Team

Prerequisites:

• A low-privileged account on a VMware Aria Operations instance (version unknown).
• Network access to the Aria Operations web interface or API.

Exploitation Steps:

1. Authenticate to the Aria Operations web interface using the low-privileged account.
2. Identify API endpoints that handle user credentials (e.g., /api/credentials, /rest/users/{id}/credentials).
3. Send a GET request to retrieve credentials of another user (e.g., an admin):

   GET /api/credentials/admin_user HTTP/1.1
   Host: aria-ops.example.com
   Cookie: session=<low_priv_session>
   

4. If the server returns the credentials without proper authorization, the exploit is successful.

No public exploit code is available. The following is a conceptual Python script:

import requests

target = "https://aria-ops.example.com"
session = requests.Session()
session.cookies.set("session", "<low_priv_session>")

# Attempt to retrieve admin credentials
resp = session.get(f"{target}/api/credentials/admin")
if resp.status_code == 200:
    print("Credentials disclosed:", resp.text)
else:
    print("Exploit failed")

Blue Team

Detection:

• Monitor for unusual API calls to credential-related endpoints from non-admin users.
• Alert on HTTP 200 responses to /api/credentials/* from low-privileged sessions.
• Correlate with failed login attempts or privilege escalation events.

Hunting:

• Search logs for patterns like GET /api/credentials/ with a 200 status code and a non-admin session.
• Review access control lists for credential endpoints.

Mitigation:

• Implement strict role-based access control (RBAC) on all credential-related APIs.
• Apply the principle of least privilege to all user accounts.
• Monitor for vendor patches and apply immediately when available.

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

• Network IOCs:
  • HTTP requests to /api/credentials/* or similar endpoints from non-admin users.
  • Unusual outbound data transfers containing credential patterns (e.g., password=, secret=).
• Host IOCs:
  • Unexpected credential files or environment variables in user home directories.
  • Processes accessing credential stores (e.g., vrops_credential_store.db).
• Log IOCs:
  • Audit log entries showing access to credential APIs by unauthorized users.
  • Repeated 403 errors followed by a 200 success on credential endpoints.

Detection Engineering

YARA Rule

rule CVE_2025_41245_Credential_Disclosure {
    meta:
        description = "Detects potential exploitation of CVE-2025-41245 in VMware Aria Operations"
        author = "Valters IT"
        date = "2025-04-10"
        reference = "CVE-2025-41245"
    strings:
        $cred_api = "/api/credentials/" ascii wide nocase
        $user_id_pattern = /\/api\/credentials\/[a-zA-Z0-9_]+/ ascii wide
        $response_200 = "HTTP/1.1 200 OK" ascii wide
    condition:
        $cred_api and $user_id_pattern and $response_200
}

Sigma Rule

title: CVE-2025-41245 - Credential Disclosure Attempt
id: 8a9b3c2d-1e5f-4a7b-8c9d-0e1f2a3b4c5d
status: experimental
description: Detects attempts to exploit CVE-2025-41245 by accessing credential APIs from non-admin users
author: Valters IT
date: 2025-04-10
logsource:
    category: web
    product: vmware_aria_operations
detection:
    selection:
        cs-method: 'GET'
        cs-uri-stem|startswith: '/api/credentials/'
        sc-status: 200
    filter:
        cs-username|endswith: '@admin'  # Adjust based on admin naming convention
    condition: selection and not filter
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate admin access to credential APIs
level: high

Suricata Rule

alert http $HOME_NET any -> $EXTERNAL_NET any (
    msg:"CVE-2025-41245 - VMware Aria Operations Credential Disclosure Attempt";
    flow:to_server,established;
    content:"GET"; http_method;
    content:"/api/credentials/"; http_uri;
    pcre:"/\/api\/credentials\/[a-zA-Z0-9_]+/";
    classtype:attempted-recon;
    sid:1000001;
    rev:1;
    reference:cve,2025-41245;
)

Remediation & Mitigation

Immediate Actions:

1. Isolate affected Aria Operations instances from untrusted networks.
2. Review all user accounts and remove unnecessary privileges.
3. Monitor logs for any signs of exploitation (see IOCs and Detection Engineering).
4. Implement network segmentation to limit access to the Aria Operations API.

Long-term Fix:

• Await an official patch from VMware. Until then, consider deploying a web application firewall (WAF) rule to block access to credential APIs from non-admin IP ranges.
• Apply the principle of least privilege and enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all users.
• Regularly audit user permissions and credential storage practices.

Workaround:

• If possible, disable the credential API endpoint or restrict it to admin-only via reverse proxy rules (e.g., Nginx allow/deny directives).

Valters IT