CVE-2021-22017

CVE-2021-22017 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) vulnerability in VMware vCenter Server. CISA added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on January 10, 2022, which means exploitation in the wild has been confirmed; US federal agencies had to remediate it by January 24, 2022. CISA does not currently list it as used in ransomware campaigns. VMware has 26 vulnerabilities in the KEV catalog, 9 of them linked to ransomware.

Rhttproxy as used in vCenter Server contains a vulnerability due to improper implementation of URI normalization. A malicious actor with network access to port 443 on vCenter Server may exploit this issue to bypass proxy leading to internal endpoints being accessed.

CVSS vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

• https://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2021-0020.html
• https://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2021-0020.html
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2021-22017