Description

IBM AIX 7.2, and 7.3 and IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1 could allow a remote authenticated attacker to obtain sensitive information and cause a denial of service due to an out-of-bounds write.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "4.2",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-19T20:17:03.120Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-19T20:17:03.120Z",
  "executiveSummary": "This vulnerability involves an out-of-bounds write security flaw affecting IBM AIX and IBM PowerVM VIOS products. Specifically, the vulnerability resides within versions 7.2 and 7.3 of IBM AIX, alongside version 4.1 of IBM PowerVM VIOS. Successful exploitation of this flaw allows a remote authenticated attacker to compromise system integrity and availability. The primary impacts resulting from successful exploitation include the unauthorized acquisition of sensitive information and the induction of a denial of service condition against the targeted system. Risk implications are significant due to the potential disruption of critical virtualized infrastructure services and the exposure of confidential data. The attack vector requires the malicious actor to possess authenticated access to the target environment. Exploitation mechanics are driven by an out-of-bounds write vulnerability, which typically occurs when software writes data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer, leading to memory corruption, process crashes, or unintended data disclosure. Organizations utilizing the affected software versions face operational risks if appropriate mitigations and updates are not applied to address the underlying memory management defect.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability is classified as an out-of-bounds write memory corruption flaw present in IBM AIX 7.2, IBM AIX 7.3, and IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1. The root cause stems from improper bounds checking within a vulnerable component of the operating system or hypervisor management stack, where input data or internal state calculations fail to adequately validate buffer size boundaries prior to executing memory write operations. To initiate the attack flow, a malicious actor must first establish a valid authenticated session against the target system, as the vulnerability requires remote authentication capabilities. Upon successful authentication, the attacker can supply specially crafted inputs or leverage specific operational interfaces that interact with the vulnerable component. As the software processes the interaction, it performs a write operation that exceeds the allocated boundaries of the target memory buffer. This out-of-bounds write causes adjacent memory regions to be overwritten. Depending on the precise memory layout and the targeted data structures, this memory corruption manifests in two primary ways: first, it can overwrite sensitive internal variables or control data, leading to a crash of the service or operating system kernel component, thereby inducing a denial of service condition; second, it can corrupt memory structures in a manner that inadvertently exposes sensitive information residing in adjacent memory segments back to the authenticated user. The post-exploitation impact is characterized by the potential degradation or complete disruption of system availability through service termination, as well as the unauthorized disclosure of confidential data stored in system memory. Because the flaw involves memory corruption via out-of-bounds operations, the severity is amplified by the potential for arbitrary data corruption within the context of the executing process or kernel subsystem."
}