Vulnerability Note VU#194604

IBM Power 5 Service Processor privilege escalation vulnerability

Original Release date: 12 Dec 2012 | Last revised: 02 Jan 2013

Overview

IBM Power 5 Service Processor contain a vulnerability which could allow an attacker to operate with elevated privileges.

Description

IBM's security advisory states, "A security issue has been identified on IBM Power 5 Systems such that the firewall code does not get executed in certain network configurations leading to elevated privilege. The issue only exists on Service Processor for IBM Power 5 Systems listed below and has not been found to exist in any other IBM System."

Impact

An attacker with access to the IBM Power 5 Service Processor could escalate their privileges allowing them to  to perform administrative functions on the system.

Solution

Update


The vendor has stated that this vulnerability has been address in SF240_418_382. Users are advised to upgrade to SF240_418_382 or higher. The fix can be obtained from FixCentral by providing the MTM and current fix level.

IBM's security advisory states the following workaround, "Configure (any) Static IP addresses on at least one Ethernet interface of the IBM Service processor."

Vendor Information (Learn More)

IBM's security advisory states the following affected products and versions are affected by this vulnerability:
Platforms (MTM) Impacted: 9117-570, 9110-51A, 9111-520, 9131-52A, 9113-550, 9133-55A, 9116-561, 9111-285, 9115-505, 9110-510, 9118-575, 9123-710, 9124-720 9405-520, 9406-520, 9407-515, 9406-525, 9406-550, 9406-570

VendorStatusDate NotifiedDate Updated
IBM CorporationAffected10 Oct 201204 Dec 2012
If you are a vendor and your product is affected, let us know.

CVSS Metrics (Learn More)

Group Score Vector
Base 7.9 AV:A/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
Temporal 6.2 E:POC/RL:OF/RC:C
Environmental 1.8 CDP:LM/TD:L/CR:ND/IR:ND/AR:ND

References

Credit

Thanks to Brian Smith for reporting this vulnerability.

This document was written by Michael Orlando.

Other Information

  • CVE IDs: CVE-2012-4856
  • Date Public: 19 Nov 2012
  • Date First Published: 12 Dec 2012
  • Date Last Updated: 02 Jan 2013
  • Document Revision: 14

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