SSMC Virtual Appliance Image for VMware uses VMware hardware profile version 8 by default

Symptom

The default hardware profile used by SSMC VMware appliance image is version 8, which is prone to CVE-2017-5715.

Cause

Refer CVE-2017-5715 (Spectre) AND VMware KB 52085.

Action
Refer to VMware KB article 1010675 to upgrade the SSMC appliance VM image to the latest hardware profile (version 9 or above).
NOTE:

SSMC appliance has been tested to upgrade successfully up to hardware version profile 13.