Which versions of VMware ESXi are affected by CVE-2025-62627?

VMware ESXi 8.x and 9.x deployments using AMD-Pensando ionic drivers contain a memory disclosure flaw that breaks inter-tenant isolation, allowing guest virtual machines to read hypervisor kernel…

How to fix or mitigate CVE-2025-62627?

Within 24 hours, audit your ESXi 8.x and 9.x environment to identify hosts with the AMD-Pensando ionic driver in use and temporarily separate workloads containing sensitive data from untrusted or external-facing guest VMs to reduce exposure. Within 7 days, determine whether the ionic driver is operationally critical for your environment; if not required, disable it on affected hosts and apply necessary service restarts. If the driver is essential, implement workload isolation policies that segregate trust levels between guest VMs and document the operational justification. Within 30 days, establish a patch monitoring process for VMware security advisories and prepare a testing and deployment schedule for when vendor patches become available, prioritizing production environments.

VMware ESXi CVE-2025-62627

Q: What is the CVSS score of CVE-2025-62627?

CVE-2025-62627 has a CVSS 4.0 base score of 7.2 (High). CVSS vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:L/VA:H/SC:H/SI:L/SA:H/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X. EPSS exploitation probability: 0.0%.

EUVD-2025-209815 HIGH

Untrusted Pointer Dereference (CWE-822)

2026-05-13 AMD

Information Disclosure VMware Amd Esxi 8 X And Esxi 9 X Hosts Using Amd Pensando Dpu Products

7.2

CVSS 4.0 · NVD

Severity by source

NVD PRIMARY

7.2 HIGH

CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:L/VA:H/SC:H/SI:L/SA:H/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

vuln.today AI

7.7 HIGH

Attacker needs a low-privileged guest VM (AV:L/PR:L), reliable kernel-state grooming makes it AC:H, and reading host/other-guest memory crosses the isolation boundary (S:C) with high confidentiality and availability impact.

3.1 AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:H

4.0 AV:L/AC:H/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:L/VA:H/SC:H/SI:L/SA:H

Primary rating from NVD.

CVSS VectorNVD

Attack Vector

Local

Attack Complexity

High

Privileges Required

Low

User Interaction

None

Scope

Lifecycle Timeline

Analysis Generated

Jul 23, 2026 - 19:01 vuln.today

CVE Published

May 13, 2026 - 02:59 nvd

UNKNOWN (no severity yet)

CVE Published

May 13, 2026 - 02:59 cve.org

HIGH 7.2

DescriptionCVE.org

An untrusted pointer dereference in the ionic cloud driver for VMWare ESXi could allow an attacker with an unprivileged VM to read kernel memory or co-located guest VM memory, potentially resulting in loss of confidentiality or availability.

AnalysisAI

Kernel and cross-guest memory disclosure in VMware ESXi 8.x/9.x hosts running the AMD-Pensando 'ionic' cloud DPU driver allows an attacker operating from an unprivileged guest VM to read hypervisor kernel memory or the memory of co-located guest VMs, breaking tenant isolation. The flaw (CWE-822, untrusted pointer dereference) was reported by AMD and can result in loss of confidentiality or availability. There is no public exploit identified at time of analysis, and EPSS is negligible at 0.01%, with CISA SSVC recording no observed exploitation.

Technical ContextAI

The vulnerability resides in the AMD-Pensando 'ionic' cloud driver, the DPU/SmartNIC data-path driver that offloads networking and storage functions on ESXi hosts equipped with AMD-Pensando DPU hardware. CWE-822 (Untrusted Pointer Dereference) means the driver dereferences a pointer value that originates from, or can be influenced by, an untrusted source (a guest VM) without adequate validation, causing it to read from an attacker-influenced kernel address. Because the DPU driver runs in the privileged host/hypervisor context and mediates I/O for multiple tenants, an out-of-bounds or attacker-directed read can expose ESXi kernel memory or the physical memory backing neighboring guest VMs, defeating the isolation boundary the hypervisor is meant to enforce. The affected CPE is cpe:2.3:a:amd:esxi_8.x_and_esxi_9.x_hosts_using_amd-pensando_dpu_products, confining exposure to hosts with this specific DPU deployment rather than all ESXi installations.

RemediationAI

Apply the vendor-released patch: upgrade affected ESXi hosts to ESXi 8.0U3i, delivered via VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2.3.0 or the 9.0.2 releases, per AMD bulletin AMD-SB-2001 (https://www.amd.com/en/resources/product-security/bulletin/AMD-SB-2001.html). Because the flaw is specific to the AMD-Pensando DPU ionic driver, if immediate patching is not possible the most effective compensating control is to restrict which tenants can run untrusted or low-trust VMs on DPU-backed hosts - consolidate untrusted guests onto non-DPU hosts or dedicate DPU hosts to single-tenant/trusted workloads, accepting the capacity and scheduling trade-offs. Tighten guest-provisioning access so unprivileged users cannot freely place workloads on affected hosts, and monitor DPU/host logs for anomalous driver activity. These controls reduce the co-tenancy exposure that the vulnerability depends on but do not eliminate the underlying driver defect, so patching remains the priority.