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Analyze » VMware » VMW1770230091

Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (VMW1770230091)

The details regarding individual company incidents & reports gives you full view from every side.

Rankiteo Score Impact Analysis

Rankiteo Incident Impact-132
Company Score Before Incident655 / 1000
Company Score After Incident523 / 1000
Company LinkView VMware Profile
INCIDENT NUMBERVMW1770230091
Type of Cyber IncidentRansomware
ATTACK VECTORPrivileged access to VMX process, sandbox escape
DATA EXPOSEDNA
INCIDENT DATE28/02/2025
STATUSOngoing

Key Highlights From The Incident Analysis

  • Timeline of VMware's Ransomware and lateral movement inside company's environment.
  • Overview of affected data sets, including SSNs and PHI, and why they materially increase incident severity.
  • How Rankiteo’s incident engine converts technical details into a normalized incident score.
  • How this cyber incident impacts VMware Rankiteo cyber scoring and cyber rating.
  • Rankiteo’s MITRE ATT&CK correlation analysis for this incident, with associated confidence level.

Full Incident Analysis Transcript

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the VMware breach identified under incident ID VMW1770230091.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of VMware's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vmware, the number of followers: 2049076, the industry type: Software Development and the number of employees: 12343 employees

After the initial compromise, the video explains how Rankiteo's incident engine converts technical details into a normalized incident score. The incident score before the incident was 655 and after the incident was 523 with a difference of -132 which is could be a good indicator of the severity and impact of the incident.

In the next step of the video, we will analyze in more details the incident and the impact it had on VMware and their customers.

Broadcom (VMware) recently reported "Ransomware Gangs Exploit Critical VMware ESXi Sandbox Escape Flaw", a noteworthy cybersecurity incident.

The U.S.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting VMware ESXi, Fusion, Cloud Foundation, vSphere, Workstation, Telco Cloud Platform.

In response, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like Patching (March 2025), and began remediation that includes Application of security updates for CVE-2025-22225, CVE-2025-22226, CVE-2025-22224.

The case underscores how Ongoing, and recommending next steps like Patch VMware ESXi, Fusion, Cloud Foundation, vSphere, Workstation, and Telco Cloud Platform systems immediately to mitigate CVE-2025-22225, CVE-2025-22226, and CVE-2025-22224, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Federal agencies mandated to patch by March 25, 2025 under BOD 22-01.

Finally, we try to match the incident with the MITRE ATT&CK framework to see if there is any correlation between the incident and the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

The MITRE ATT&CK framework is a knowledge base of techniques and sub-techniques that are used to describe the tactics and procedures of cyber adversaries. It is a powerful tool for understanding the threat landscape and for developing effective defense strategies.

MITRE ATT&CK® Correlation Analysis

Rankiteo's analysis has identified several MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques associated with this incident, each with varying levels of confidence based on available evidence. Under the Initial Access tactic, the analysis identified Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating exploiting CVE-2025-22225, a high-severity VMware ESXi sandbox escape vulnerability and Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating attackers with admin or root access could chain these vulnerabilities. Under the Privilege Escalation tactic, the analysis identified Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating execute arbitrary kernel writes, enabling sandbox escapes via CVE-2025-22225. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Exploitation for Defense Evasion (T1211) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating bypass virtual machine isolation via CVE-2025-22225, CVE-2025-22226, CVE-2025-22224. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating ransomware gangs are actively exploiting the VMware ESXi flaw. Under the Execution tactic, the analysis identified Exploitation for Client Execution (T1203) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating execute arbitrary kernel writes via CVE-2025-22225. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.

Initial Access
Exploit Public-Facing Application (90%)
Valid Accounts (80%)
Privilege Escalation
Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (90%)
Defense Evasion
Exploitation for Defense Evasion (80%)
Impact
Data Encrypted for Impact (70%)
Execution
Exploitation for Client Execution (80%)

Sources & References