VMware Warns of 3 New Critical Flaws Affecting Workspace ONE Assist Software

VMware has patched five security flaws affecting its Workspace ONE Assist^[1]
solution, some of which could be exploited to bypass authentication
and obtain elevated permissions.

Topping the list, are three critical vulnerabilities tracked as
CVE-2022-31685, CVE-2022-31686, and CVE-2022-31687. All the
shortcomings are rated 9.8 on the CVSS vulnerability scoring
system.

CVE-2022-31685 is an authentication bypass flaw that could be
abused by an attacker with network access to VMware Workspace ONE
Assist to obtain administrative access without the need to
authenticate to the application.

CVE-2022-31686 has been described by the virtualization services
provider as a “broken authentication method” vulnerability, and
CVE-2022-31687 as a “Broken Access Control” flaw.

“A malicious actor with network access may be able to obtain
administrative access without the need to authenticate to the
application,” VMware said^[2]
in an advisory for CVE-2022-31686 and CVE-2022-31687.

Another vulnerability is a case of a reflected cross-site
scripting (XSS^[3]) vulnerability
(CVE-2022-31688, CVSS score: 6.4) stemming from improper user input
sanitization, something that could be exploited to inject arbitrary
JavaScript code in the target user’s window.

Rounding off the patch is a session fixation vulnerability^[4] (CVE-2022-31689, CVSS
score: 4.2) that VMware said is the result of improper handling of
session tokens, adding “a malicious actor who obtains a valid
session token may be able to authenticate to the application using
that token.”

Security researchers Jasper Westerman, Jan van der Put, Yanick
de Pater, and Harm Blankers of Netherlands-based Reqon have been
credited with discovering and reporting the flaws.

All the issues impact versions 21.x and 22.x of VMware Workspace
ONE Assist and have been fixed in version
22.10^[5]. The company also said
there are no workarounds that address the weaknesses.