VMware issued a warning for a security vulnerability (CVE-2011-1126) in several of its products that run on Linux.  According to the warning, the VMware vmrun utility, which is used to perform various tasks on virtual machines including automated guest operations and is installed by default, is susceptible to a local privilege escalation issue in non-standard configurations.  This is caused when the utility incorrectly loads libraries from certain directories.  This could, for example, be exploited by a malicious local user to gain escalated privileges and make unauthorized changes.

VMware Workstation version 7.1.3 and 6.5.5 (and earlier) on Linux, as well as VMware VIX API for Linux 1.10.2 and earlier, are all said to be affected.  Windows versions of the products are unaffected.

To correct the issue, the company has issued a patch for its VMware Workstation, however, VMware VIX API remains unpatched. Further details of the affected versions can be found in the security advisory.