HCX - Mobility Agent (MA) host is unaffected from VMware Advisory CVE-2022-31696

Products

• VMware HCX

Issue/Introduction

HCX Mobility Agent (MA) hosts may get flagged for VMware Advisory VMSA-2022-0030 (vmware.com) while running a 3rd party VA scanning tool.

Environment

VMware HCX

Resolution

The HCX-IX appliance adds the Mobility Agent service as a host object in the vCenter Server. in general, the Mobility Agent host version pushed from HCX to VC is dependent upon VC/ESX versions, and it’s always backward compatible.

Note: Mobility agent host is a dummy ESXi server used to perform vMotion, Cold, and Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV) migrations for HCX. Unlike a traditional ESXi server, it does not expose the same services or open the same number of network ports, and is therefore not vulnerable to the reported advisory.

Additional Information

From security perspective, HCX will never be vulnerable to ESXi vulnerabilities since no real ESXi is shipped in the appliance. Please refer to VMware Cloud: Introduction to HCX for further details.