Description

IBM AIX 7.2, and 7.3 and IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1 could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code due to a stack buffer overflow.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "9.8",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-19T20:17:07.653Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-19T20:17:07.653Z",
  "executiveSummary": "This vulnerability is a stack buffer overflow flaw affecting IBM AIX and IBM PowerVM VIOS. The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to achieve arbitrary code execution on targeted systems.\nThe affected products include IBM AIX versions 7.2 and 7.3, alongside IBM PowerVM VIOS version 4.1. Successful exploitation of this security defect poses severe risk implications, potentially leading to complete system compromise, unauthorized access, and loss of confidentiality, integrity, and availability.\nAn unauthenticated remote attacker with network access to vulnerable services can leverage this vulnerability without requiring prior privileges. The attacker capabilities include injecting malicious payloads designed to overwrite memory structures on the stack, leading to control flow hijacking and arbitrary code execution within the context of the vulnerable process.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of the vulnerability resides in unsafe memory handling operations within the affected components of IBM AIX 7.2, 7.3, and IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1. Specifically, the vulnerable component fails to properly bound-check input data before copying it into a fixed-size stack-allocated memory buffer.\nWhen a remote attacker transmits a specially crafted request containing excessively large input over the network, a stack buffer overflow occurs. This overflow corrupts adjacent stack memory regions, including saved frame pointers and return addresses.\nThe exploitation method involves carefully structuring the input payload to overwrite the return address with the memory address of malicious shellcode or a targeted gadget chain, thereby hijacking the execution flow when the vulnerable function returns.\nAttack flow begins with network exposure where the attacker sends the malicious payload to the targeted service running on the vulnerable operating system or hypervisor. Because authentication and privilege requirements are absent for this specific network-exposed entry point, the malicious input is processed directly by the vulnerable routine.\nPayload behavior during execution runs with the privileges of the compromised process, which may include high-privileged or root contexts depending on the service architecture. Post-exploitation impact encompasses arbitrary code execution, system instability, potential denial of service, and complete operational takeover of the underlying AIX environment or PowerVM VIOS partition management plane."
}