Check host persistence
In 2023, attackers targeted cracked versions of ESXi with ransomware that encrypted all VMs. The victims could not call VMware support because their licenses were invalid.
A VMware ESXi license key is a unique code provided by VMware that unlocks the full features of the ESXi hypervisor. The license key is used to activate the software, allowing users to take advantage of advanced features such as high availability, distributed resource scheduler, and vMotion.