I have run across a design issue in VMware's scripting automation API that
diminishes VM guest/host isolation in such a manner to facilitate privilege
escalation, spreading of malware, and compromise of guest operating systems.
VMware's scripting API allows a malicious script on the host machine to
execute programs, open URLs, and perform other privileged operations on any
guest operating system open at the console, without requiring any
credentials on the guest operating system. Furthermore, the script can
execute programs even if you lock the desktop of the guest OS.
For example, if a non-admin user is logged in at the vm host, but logged in
to guest operating systems as an administrator, the script running as a
non-admin on the host can still execute admin-level scripts on the guests.
I obviously did not discover this issue--the API developers provided it as a
feature-I am simply pointing out the potential danger, that it was a poor
design decision, and that there is a need to establish best practices for
virtual machine guest and host isolation.