Description

IBM i 7.6, 7.5, 7.4, and 7.3 could allow a local attacker to gain elevated privileges due to improper privilege management.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.8",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-13T19:17:18.970Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-13T19:17:18.970Z",
  "executiveSummary": "A privilege escalation vulnerability has been identified in IBM i versions 7.6, 7.5, 7.4, and 7.3. The security flaw stems from improper privilege management within the operating system architecture.\nThe vulnerability allows a local attacker to execute operations or access resources restricted to higher privilege tiers, potentially leading to unauthorized system administration capabilities.\nThe primary impact of successful exploitation is the elevation of privileges, allowing malicious actors to compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the affected system.\nExploitation of this vulnerability requires local access to the target system. The attacker must already possess a validated user context on the host to interact with the vulnerable subsystem.\nOrganizations utilizing the specified versions of IBM i face significant risk if unprivileged local users are able to leverage this improper privilege management flaw to bypass security controls and escalate their authorization level.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of the vulnerability resides in flawed privilege management mechanisms within IBM i 7.6, 7.5, 7.4, and 7.3. The operating system fails to properly enforce security boundaries and access control lists during specific internal operations or system calls.\nThe vulnerable component involves the operating system kernel or privileged system services responsible for managing user authorization states and execution contexts. Due to improper validation, a user process can interact with these components in an unintended manner.\nExploitation requires local authentication. The attack vector is strictly local, meaning network exposure is not a direct prerequisite for this specific flaw, and remote attackers cannot exploit it without prior access.\nThe attack flow proceeds as follows: First, the local attacker establishes a standard user session on the targeted IBM i instance. Second, the actor interacts with a specific system interface or function that suffers from improper privilege validation. Third, by supplying specially crafted inputs or invoking the function under specific conditions, the attacker bypasses standard access checks.\nFinally, the underlying subsystem grants elevated execution rights or resource access to the attacker's process, effectively resulting in privilege escalation. Post-exploitation impact includes the ability to execute privileged commands, modify sensitive system configurations, access restricted data stores, and potentially compromise the entire operating system environment."
}