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 command injection.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "8.8",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-19T20:17:07.810Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-19T20:17:07.810Z",
  "executiveSummary": "This vulnerability is classified as a command injection security flaw affecting specific IBM operating systems and virtualization management platforms.\nThe primary impact of successful exploitation is remote code execution, which may allow an unauthenticated or remote attacker to compromise the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of the underlying host.\nThe affected systems include IBM AIX 7.2 and 7.3, as well as IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1.\nThe risk implications are severe, as arbitrary command execution on enterprise Unix and virtualization platforms typically grants the adversary elevated control over the operating system environment, potentially leading to full system takeover.\nAttacker capabilities include the ability to inject malicious operating system commands through vulnerable interfaces, leveraging the trust boundary of the running service to execute arbitrary payloads with the privileges of the affected component.\nExploitation requirements are dictated by the inherent network exposure of the vulnerable service processing untrusted input without proper sanitization or parameterization.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of the vulnerability stems from improper neutralization of special elements used in an operating system command, characteristic of a classic command injection flaw.\nThe vulnerable components reside within IBM AIX 7.2, AIX 7.3, and IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1, where input supplied by users or external data streams is improperly handled and passed directly to underlying system shells or command evaluation functions.\nThe affected versions explicitly include IBM AIX 7.2, IBM AIX 7.3, and IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1.\nThe attack flow begins when an attacker crafts a malicious request containing shell metacharacters or command separators designed to break out of the intended application logic.\nUpon receiving the malicious input, the vulnerable application fails to adequately sanitize, validate, or escape the data before concatenating it into a system execution call.\nThe operating system interprets the injected metacharacters as command delimiters, causing the underlying shell to execute the attacker-supplied commands sequentially alongside or instead of the intended administrative routines.\nAuthentication and privilege requirements depend on the specific entry point exposed by the service, but remote exploitation implies that network exposure is present, allowing external network vectors to reach the vulnerable parser.\nThe payload behavior during post-exploitation involves the execution of arbitrary binaries or shell scripts with the security context and privileges of the affected daemon or process.\nThis level of access facilitates lateral movement, persistence establishment, data exfiltration, or system sabotage within the targeted IBM AIX or PowerVM VIOS infrastructure."
}