In this case because of a CVE.

• Download the VMware Tools packages from VMware Downloads.
• Extract the VMware Tools packages
• Copy the files (contents of folders floppies and vmtools) from the extracted location to the locker partition on the esxi host.

! If you haven’t enabled SSH, do so first.

scp -rp ./* root@<esxi-host>:/locker/packages/vmtoolsRepo

After copying the files the esxi shows that there is an update available.

Expanding the VMware tools information shows the current version.

Open the guest options and choose to Upgrade VMware Tools.

After a reboot the information show the new version information.

If you are not using SSH you can disable it again.