Potential CVE-2025-41244 vmtoolsd LPE Exploitation Attempt
This rule looks for processes that behave like an attacker trying to exploit a known vulnerability in VMware tools (CVE-2025-41244). The vulnerable behavior involves the VMware tools service or its discovery scripts…
Description
This rule looks for processes that behave like an attacker trying to exploit a known vulnerability in VMware tools (CVE-2025-41244). The vulnerable behavior involves the VMware tools service or its discovery scripts executing other programs to probe their version strings. An attacker can place a malicious program in a writable location (for example /tmp) and have the tools execute it with elevated privileges, resulting in local privilege escalation. The rule flags launches where vmtoolsd or the service discovery scripts start other child processes.
Detection logic
Its licence does not clear it for publishing here
Sunturai publishes a detection's own text where the licence it arrived under has been reviewed and permits it, and Elastic License 2.0 has not. The query as its source wrote it, its canonical form and the hash that pins this revision are in the workspace record.
Detection requirements
- Platform
- ContainersLinuxmacOSWindows
The rule states no platform. This is derived from the 2 ATT&CK techniques it maps to.
- Log source category
- event_index
MITRE ATT&CK mappings
0 exclusive techniques.This is coverage no other published rule has; it is not this rule's total technique count.
References
| Reference | Cited by |
|---|---|
| blog.nviso.eu/2025/09/29/you-name-it-vmware-elevates-it-cve-2025-41244/ | Only this detection cites it |
From the source
- At source
- Open at source
- Upstream identifier
- c5da2519-160c-4cc9-bf69-b0223e99d0db
- Tagged by the source as
- Data Source: Auditd ManagerData Source: CrowdstrikeData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: SentinelOneDomain: EndpointOS: LinuxResources: Investigation GuideTactic: Privilege EscalationUse Case: Threat DetectionUse Case: Vulnerability
Licence
- Published under
- Elastic License 2.0Read the licence
- Attribution
- Required
Authorship
- Written by
- Published
- Aug 27, 2026
- Version
- 1