Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
This vulnerability can let someone with high Active Directory privileges become administrator on an ESXi host that uses AD for user management. The weakness involves recreating the configured AD admin group, commonly the default group, after it was deleted. Because ESXi hosts run critical workloads, successful abuse can create major business impact.
Executive priority
Treat this as high priority despite the medium CVSS score because CISA marks it as known exploited and successful abuse can give full control of virtualization hosts.
Technical view
CVE-2024-37085 is an ESXi authentication bypass affecting VMware ESXi 8.0 and 7.0, and VMware Cloud Foundation 5.x and 4.x. The CVSS 3.1 score is 6.8, with network access, low complexity, high privileges, user interaction, and high confidentiality, integrity, and availability impact.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely where ESXi hosts are joined to Active Directory for user management and the configured AD administrator group can be recreated or controlled by privileged AD users.
Exploitation context
CISA lists CVE-2024-37085 in the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, so active exploitation is supported by a cited government source. The source bundle does not provide exploit details, affected build ranges beyond product versions, or confirmed attacker tooling.
Researcher notes
The key condition is not broad unauthenticated access; the actor needs sufficient AD permissions. Research should focus on AD-integrated ESXi hosts, configured admin group state, group recreation history, and host authorization behavior. Evidence is incomplete on exact fixed builds in the provided bundle.
Mitigation direction
- Review Broadcom’s advisory for fixed versions and supported workarounds.
- Prioritize ESXi hosts configured to use Active Directory authentication.
- Restrict who can create or modify the configured ESXi AD admin group.
- Audit and harden membership of the configured ESXi administrator group.
- Monitor AD group creation events involving ESXi admin group names.
- Plan remediation for affected VMware Cloud Foundation deployments.
Validation and detection
- Inventory ESXi 8.0 and 7.0 hosts joined to Active Directory.
- Identify the configured AD group used for ESXi administrative access.
- Check whether the default or configured admin group was deleted and recreated.
- Review AD logs for recent creation or modification of that group.
- Confirm host patch status against Broadcom’s advisory.
- Validate administrative access lists on affected ESXi hosts.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
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CWE-305: Exact CWE lookup
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Open ATT&CK lookupCredential and access behavior lookup
The CVE wording references authentication or credential exposure, so valid-account and credential-access review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2024-37085 mapping review
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Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Medium
- CVSS
- 6.8 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- Yes
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CISA KEV status
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H0.95.9Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
6.8MediumVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://support.broadcom.com/web/ecx/support-content-notification/-/external/content/SecurityAdvisories/0/24505CVE reference
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2024-37085CVE reference · government-resource
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Authentication Bypass by Primary Weakness
Authentication Bypass by Primary Weakness represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.