CVE-2025-2241 is a high-severity vulnerability affecting Hive, a component used within Multicluster Engine (MCE) and Advanced Cluster Management (ACM) platforms. The flaw involves insecure storage of sensitive information, specifically VCenter credentials, within the ClusterProvision object after provisioning a VSphere cluster. Normally, Kubernetes Secrets are used to securely store sensitive data; however, this vulnerability exposes credentials in a less protected object accessible to users with read permissions on ClusterProvision objects. This means that even users without direct access to Kubernetes Secrets can extract VCenter credentials. The exposed credentials can then be used to gain unauthorized access to VCenter, enabling attackers to manage clusters and escalate privileges within the environment. The vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 score of 8.2, indicating high severity, with a vector showing network attack vector, high attack complexity, low privileges required, no user interaction, and a scope change. The impact includes full confidentiality and integrity compromise of VCenter credentials, but no direct availability impact. No known exploits are currently reported in the wild, but the potential for exploitation is significant given the sensitive nature of the credentials exposed and the broad access this could grant to attackers.

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a significant risk especially for enterprises relying on VMware VSphere clusters managed via MCE or ACM. Exposure of VCenter credentials can lead to unauthorized control over virtualized infrastructure, allowing attackers to manipulate cluster configurations, deploy malicious workloads, or disrupt operations. This can result in data breaches, operational downtime, and potential lateral movement within corporate networks. Organizations in sectors such as finance, healthcare, telecommunications, and critical infrastructure, which often rely heavily on virtualized environments, could face severe operational and reputational damage. Additionally, regulatory frameworks like GDPR impose strict requirements on protecting sensitive data; a breach stemming from this vulnerability could lead to regulatory penalties and loss of customer trust. The fact that read access to ClusterProvision objects is sufficient to exploit this vulnerability means that insider threats or compromised low-privilege accounts could also be leveraged to gain elevated access, increasing the attack surface.

To mitigate this vulnerability, organizations should first apply any available patches or updates from the vendor as soon as they are released. In the absence of patches, immediate steps include restricting read access to ClusterProvision objects strictly to trusted administrators and implementing strict role-based access controls (RBAC) to minimize the number of users who can view these objects. Audit logs should be enabled and monitored for unusual access patterns to ClusterProvision objects. Additionally, organizations should rotate VCenter credentials that may have been exposed and consider implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) on VCenter access to reduce the risk of credential misuse. Network segmentation should be employed to isolate management clusters from general user networks. Finally, organizations should review and harden their Kubernetes and cluster management configurations to ensure sensitive information is stored only in secure Kubernetes Secrets and not in less protected objects.