The CPU hardware emulation in VMware Workstation 6.0.5 and earlier and 5.5.8 and earlier; Player 2.0.x through 2.0.5 and 1.0.x through 1.0.8; ACE 2.0.x through 2.0.5 and earlier, and 1.0.x through 1.0.7; Server 1.0.x through 1.0.7; ESX 2.5.4 through 3.5; and ESXi 3.5, when running 32-bit and 64-bit guest operating systems, does not properly handle the Trap flag, which allows authenticated guest OS users to gain privileges on the guest OS.
The CPU hardware emulation for 64-bit guest operating systems in VMware Workstation 6.0.x before 6.0.5 build 109488 and 5.x before 5.5.8 build 108000; Player 2.0.x before 2.0.5 build 109488 and 1.x before 1.0.8; Server 1.x before 1.0.7 build 108231; and ESX 2.5.4 through 3.5 allows authenticated guest OS users to gain additional guest OS privileges by triggering an exception that causes the virtual CPU to perform an indirect jump to a non-canonical address.
Daniel Veillard discovered that a specially crafted document can lead to a recursive evaluation of entities, the result being an exhaustion of memory and CPU usage
Acknowledgements:
Red Hat would like to thank Andreas Solberg for responsibly disclosing this issue.