CVE-2021-21975 in Vmare and VMware Products
Published on March 31, 2021

Server Side Request Forgery in vRealize Operations Manager API (CVE-2021-21975) prior to 8.4 may allow a malicious actor with network access to the vRealize Operations Manager API can perform a Server Side Request Forgery attack to steal administrative credentials.

Vendor Advisory NVD

Known Exploited Vulnerability

This VMware Server Side Request Forgery in vRealize Operations Manager API vulnerability is part of CISA's list of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities. Server Side Request Forgery (SSRF) in vRealize Operations Manager API prior to 8.4 may allow a malicious actor with network access to the vRealize Operations Manager API to perform a SSRF attack to steal administrative credentials.

The following remediation steps are recommended / required by February 1, 2022: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2021-21975 can be exploited with network access, and does not require authorization privileges or user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. It has the highest possible exploitability rating (3.9). The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have a high impact on confidentiality, with no impact on integrity and availability.

What is a XSPA Vulnerability?

The web server receives a URL or similar request from an upstream component and retrieves the contents of this URL, but it does not sufficiently ensure that the request is being sent to the expected destination. By providing URLs to unexpected hosts or ports, attackers can make it appear that the server is sending the request, possibly bypassing access controls such as firewalls that prevent the attackers from accessing the URLs directly. The server can be used as a proxy to conduct port scanning of hosts in internal networks, use other URLs such as that can access documents on the system (using file://), or use other protocols such as gopher:// or tftp://, which may provide greater control over the contents of requests.

CVE-2021-21975 has been classified to as a XSPA vulnerability or weakness.

Products Associated with CVE-2021-21975

You can be notified by stack.watch whenever vulnerabilities like CVE-2021-21975 are published in these products:

Vmare Vrealize Operations Manager

VMware Cloud Foundation

VMware Vrealize Suite Lifecycle Manager

VMware Vrealize Operations Manager

What versions are vulnerable to CVE-2021-21975?