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 improper validation of network-supplied pointers.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "9.8",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-19T20:17:11.650Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-19T20:17:11.650Z",
  "executiveSummary": "An arbitrary code execution vulnerability exists in IBM AIX 7.2, 7.3, and IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1 due to improper validation of network-supplied pointers.\nThis vulnerability allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable systems, posing significant risk to system confidentiality, integrity, and availability.\nThe flaw stems from insufficient boundary and pointer verification within network data processing routines, enabling malicious actors to manipulate memory structures directly.\nSuccessful exploitation requires network connectivity to vulnerable services running on the targeted host, potentially leading to a complete compromise of the underlying operating system or virtualization partition.\nOrganizations utilizing affected versions of IBM AIX and IBM PowerVM VIOS face severe security implications if unauthorized entities can reach network-exposed components susceptible to this pointer validation flaw.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of the vulnerability resides in the improper validation of network-supplied pointers within specific communication handling routines of IBM AIX 7.2, 7.3, and IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1.\nWhen network data is received, the application or kernel subsystem fails to adequately verify memory addresses and pointer references provided within the incoming packets before performing memory read or write operations.\nAn unauthenticated or remote attacker can craft specialized network payloads containing malicious memory references or manipulated pointer values.\nDuring the attack flow, the vulnerable component processes the network input and blindly trusts the supplied pointers, resulting in out-of-bounds memory access, memory corruption, or arbitrary pointer dereferencing.\nBy weaponizing this improper pointer validation, an adversary can overwrite critical execution paths, control flow registers, or sensitive data structures in memory.\nThis memory manipulation facilitates the execution of arbitrary shellcode or payloads supplied by the attacker within the context of the vulnerable process or kernel space.\nDepending on the privilege context of the affected network service, post-exploitation impact ranges from local privilege escalation to complete system takeover, destabilization, or lateral movement across the network infrastructure.\nAttackers require network exposure to the vulnerable service, though specific authentication requirements depend on the exact network protocol and daemon exhibiting the improper pointer validation flaw."
}