Elastic Security Detection Rules

Potential CVE-2025-41244 vmtoolsd LPE Exploitation Attempt

Last updated 2 months ago on 2025-09-30
Created 2 months ago on 2025-09-30

About

This rule looks for processes that behave like an attacker trying to exploit a known vulnerability in VMware tools (CVE-2025-41244). The vulnerable behavior involves the VMware tools service or its discovery scripts executing other programs to probe their version strings. An attacker can place a malicious program in a writable location (for example /tmp) and have the tools execute it with elevated privileges, resulting in local privilege escalation. The rule flags launches where vmtoolsd or the service discovery scripts start other child processes.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Privilege EscalationData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: SentinelOneData Source: CrowdstrikeData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: Auditd ManagerUse Case: VulnerabilityLanguage: eql
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

Privilege Escalation (TA0004)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068)(opens in a new tab or window)

License
Elastic License v2(opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type
Event Correlation Rule
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
logs-endpoint.events.process*logs-sentinel_one_cloud_funnel.*endgame-*auditbeat-*logs-auditd_manager.auditd-*logs-crowdstrike.fdr*
Related Integrations

endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)

auditd_manager(opens in a new tab or window)

sentinel_one_cloud_funnel(opens in a new tab or window)

crowdstrike(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and
event.action in ("exec", "exec_event", "start", "executed", "process_started", "ProcessRollup2") and
(
  (
    process.parent.name == "vmtoolsd"
  ) or
  (
    process.parent.name in ("bash", "dash", "sh", "tcsh", "csh", "zsh", "ksh", "fish") and
    ?process.parent.args like ("/*/open-vm-tools/serviceDiscovery/scripts/get-versions.sh")
  )
)

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Potential CVE-2025-41244 vmtoolsd LPE Exploitation Attempt in the Elastic Security detection engine by installing this rule into your Elastic Stack.

To setup this rule, check out the installation guide for Prebuilt Security Detection Rules(opens in a new tab or window).