Description

IBM Guardium Data Protection 12.2 is vulnerable to command injection in the certificate export CLI functionality, allowing a privileged authenticated CLI user to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "9.1",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-29T18:17:17.823Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-29T18:17:17.823Z",
  "executiveSummary": "IBM Guardium Data Protection 12.2 is susceptible to a command injection vulnerability residing within its certificate export Command Line Interface (CLI) functionality.\nThis vulnerability is classified as an improper neutralization of special elements used in an OS command, which allows a locally authenticated user with sufficient CLI privileges to escape the intended execution environment.\nThe primary impact of this flaw is unauthorized remote code execution, enabling the attacker to execute arbitrary system commands with root-level privileges.\nThe vulnerability necessitates that the attacker possesses existing authenticated access to the CLI, highlighting a critical escalation of privilege risk.\nSuccessful exploitation compromises the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of the entire IBM Guardium appliance, potentially allowing an attacker to persist within the environment, exfiltrate sensitive data managed by the platform, or disable security monitoring functions.\nGiven the appliance's role in data security, the ability to bypass intended functional constraints and assume root control represents a significant security risk for the enterprise infrastructure.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability exists within the input validation logic of the certificate export CLI command in IBM Guardium Data Protection version 12.2. The underlying mechanism responsible for processing certificate export requests fails to adequately sanitize user-supplied input before passing it to an underlying system shell or execution environment.\nThe root cause is identified as an insufficient validation of parameters provided during the execution of the certificate export operation. When a user invokes the CLI functionality for certificate management, the system constructs a command string to interact with the underlying operating system's cryptographic libraries or file management utilities.\nAn authenticated user can supply maliciously crafted input containing shell metacharacters (such as backticks, semicolons, or pipe symbols) within the parameters of the CLI command. Because the application fails to properly escape or filter these inputs, the shell interprets the injected sequences as distinct commands rather than literal parameters.\nThe attack flow proceeds as follows: First, the attacker authenticates to the IBM Guardium CLI with valid, privileged credentials. Second, the attacker executes the vulnerable certificate export command, injecting a specially crafted payload into the input fields intended for file path or certificate identifier parameters. Third, the backend service passes the contaminated string to the system shell for execution. Fourth, the shell executes the injected commands, which run with the privileges of the service managing the CLI session.\nSince the administrative CLI processes often run with elevated permissions, the execution context is typically that of the root user. This transition allows the attacker to execute arbitrary binary code, manipulate configuration files, install backdoors, or pivot deeper into the network segment where the appliance is deployed.\nThe vulnerability is restricted to users who have already achieved authenticated access to the CLI; however, it effectively circumvents the intended security boundary of the restricted CLI shell. The exploitation does not require interaction with network-facing services, as the entry point is internal to the appliance's administrative interface. Post-exploitation, the attacker maintains full control over the appliance's operating system, enabling the subversion of database auditing, monitoring, and encryption management tasks that IBM Guardium is configured to perform."
}