ExtraHop named a Leader in the 2025 Forrester Wave™: Network Analysis And Visibility Solutions

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DETECTION OVERVIEW

VMware vCenter Exploit - CVE-2021-21985

Risk Factors

This vCenter plugin vulnerability is well known and requires network access to port 443 on a vCenter server. An unauthenticated attacker can leverage public exploit code to gain complete control of a device or escalate privileges to spread malware, such as ransomware, across the network.

Category

Exploitation
Detection diagram
Next in Exploitation: VMware vCenter Exploit - CVE-2021-22005

Attack Background

The VMware vSphere Client (HTML5) component of VMware vCenter enables the management of virtual environments for Windows and Linux hosts. vCenter has default plugins that monitor vSphere Client connections. A vulnerability in the Virtual SAN Health Check plugin (which is enabled by default) allows an unauthenticated attacker to successfully access classes and methods from a vulnerable endpoint (/ui/h5-vsan/rest/proxy/service) on port 443. The attacker can leverage vulnerable endpoints to look up a malicious class on the victim server, resulting in remote code execution (RCE) on the vCenter server through Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) injection.

Mitigation Options

Install patches for relevant versions

MITRE ATT&CK ID

Associated content

Announcing The Forrester Wave™: Network Analysis And Visibility Solutions, Q4 2025

Network analysis and visibility solutions remain underrepresented in enterprises. Find out why in this preview of a new Wave report.

Report

ExtraHop® Named a Leader in First-Ever Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Network Detection and Response — ExtraHop

ExtraHop® Named a Leader in First-Ever Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Network Detection and Response

News

Detections

Visit this resource for more information.

Docs

The 2025 ExtraHop Global Threat Landscape Report: The Alarming Reality of Threat Actor Dwell Time and Deeper Network Access — ExtraHop

This analysis exposes the critical link between an organization's lack of internal visibility and the escalating cost of compromise, demanding an urgent re-evaluation of how core business assets are protected.

Blog

ExtraHop RevealX MITRE ATT&CK Coverage 2024 — ExtraHop

Learn why you need to be wary of the claims certain network detection and response providers make about their coverage against the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

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MITRE ATT&CK - Network Detection & Response with RevealX — ExtraHop

Learn how NDR from RevealX helps security teams detect and investigate more adversary TTPs in the MITRE ATT&CK framework than rule-based tools.

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