# CVE-2009-4811: Denial of service in n/a

> Remote attackers can crash the VMware Authentication Daemon via malformed USER and PASS commands, causing a denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.0 (`AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 27 Apr 2010
- **Updated:** 7 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-8jq2-g365-87pp

## What is CVE-2009-4811?

CVE-2009-4811 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Vmware Player, published on 27 Apr 2010. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

VMware Authentication Daemon 1.0 in vmware-authd.exe in the VMware Authorization Service in VMware Workstation 7.0 before 7.0.1 build 227600 and 6.5.x before 6.5.4 build 246459, VMware Player 3.0 before 3.0.1 build 227600 and 2.5.x before 2.5.4 build 246459, VMware ACE 2.6 before 2.6.1 build 227600 and 2.5.x before 2.5.4 build 246459, and VMware Server 2.x allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (process crash) via a \x25\x90 sequence in the USER and PASS commands, a related issue to CVE-2009-3707.  NOTE: some of these details are obtained from third party information.

Weakness: CWE-134 (Use of Externally-Controlled Format String)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2009-4811?

It affects 4 products.


Products: Vmware Ace, Vmware Player, Vmware Server, Vmware Workstation.

## How do I fix CVE-2009-4811?

No fix has been published for CVE-2009-4811 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2009-4811 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2009-4811 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Vmware Player

- [CVE-2009-3732](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-3732/): Other in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2008-3691](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-3691/): Other in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2008-3692](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-3692/): Other in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2008-3693](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-3693/): Other in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2008-3694](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-3694/): Other in n/a (critical 10.0)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2009-4811 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2009-4811 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Vmware Player, published on 27 Apr 2010. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2009-4811 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Vmware Player. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-4811/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-4811/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2009-4811
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2009-4811
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2009-4811

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-4811/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.