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PatchSiren cyber security CVE debrief

CVE-2025-22224 VMware CVE debrief

CVE-2025-22224 is a VMware ESXi and Workstation time-of-check to time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition vulnerability that CISA added to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2025-03-04. Because it is in KEV, defenders should treat it as a priority issue and follow vendor mitigation guidance and CISA’s required actions without delay.

Vendor
VMware
Product
ESXi and Workstation
CVSS
CRITICAL 9.3
CISA KEV
Listed
Original CVE published
2025-03-04
Original CVE updated
2025-03-04
Advisory published
2025-03-04
Advisory updated
2025-03-04

Who should care

Organizations that operate VMware ESXi or VMware Workstation, especially virtualization administrators, infrastructure teams, and security teams responsible for patching and exception handling.

Technical summary

The vulnerability is described by VMware and CISA as a TOCTOU race condition in VMware ESXi and Workstation. The supplied source corpus does not include deeper technical impact details, so the safe defensive takeaway is that the issue is confirmed exploited and should be remediated according to vendor instructions.

Defensive priority

High. CISA has placed CVE-2025-22224 in the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, which indicates confirmed exploitation and an urgent remediation timeline.

Recommended defensive actions

  • Inventory all VMware ESXi and Workstation deployments that may be affected.
  • Apply vendor mitigations or patches according to VMware/Broadcom guidance as soon as possible.
  • Follow CISA BOD 22-01 guidance where applicable, especially for cloud services.
  • If mitigations are unavailable, discontinue use of the product per CISA guidance.
  • Track remediation against the KEV due date of 2025-03-25.
  • Validate completion and document any temporary risk acceptance or compensating controls.

Evidence notes

CISA KEV metadata identifies CVE-2025-22224 as a VMware ESXi and Workstation TOCTOU Race Condition Vulnerability, with dateAdded 2025-03-04 and dueDate 2025-03-25. The source item also records CISA’s required action: apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use if mitigations are unavailable. No CVSS score was provided in the supplied corpus.

Sources and references

Verified primary and authoritative sources

  • CVE-2025-22224 CVE Program record

    Publisher, destination, and source semantics verified

    URL: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-22224

    CVE Program - Official CVE Program record with source-provided CVE metadata.

  • CVE-2025-22224 NVD vulnerability detail

    Publisher, destination, and source semantics verified

    URL: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-22224

    NIST National Vulnerability Database - Official NIST NVD detail page and source-specific vulnerability assessment.

  • CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

    Publisher, destination, and source semantics verified

    URL: https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog

    Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency - Official CISA catalog of vulnerabilities known to be exploited in the wild.

Supplemental references

  • Source item URL

    Unverified legacy reference

    URL: https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/feeds/known_exploited_vulnerabilities.json

    cisa_kev

Methodology and review provenance

AI-assisted synthesis based on stored public vulnerability evidence. System validation, approval state, and publication status do not by themselves establish human review of this revision. PatchSiren helps prioritize defensive review and does not prove exposure or remediation on any system.