CVE-2025-2947 is a privilege escalation vulnerability identified in IBM i version 7.6, an operating system widely used in enterprise environments for critical business applications. The vulnerability arises from incorrect profile swapping during the execution of an OS command, which leads to insecure preservation of inherited permissions (classified under CWE-278). Specifically, when the system performs profile swapping, it fails to properly restrict or reset permissions, allowing a malicious actor who can execute this command to escalate their privileges to root-level access on the host operating system. This root access effectively grants full control over the system, enabling the attacker to bypass security controls, manipulate system configurations, access sensitive data, and potentially deploy persistent malicious code. The vulnerability does not currently have known exploits in the wild, but its existence poses a significant risk due to the critical nature of the access it can provide. IBM i 7.6 is a modern iteration of the IBM i platform, often deployed in sectors requiring high reliability and security, such as finance, manufacturing, and government. The technical root cause is tied to improper handling of permission inheritance during profile swapping, which is a fundamental OS operation, making this a systemic security flaw rather than a simple misconfiguration. The medium severity rating assigned by IBM reflects the potential impact balanced against the complexity of exploitation, but the lack of a CVSS score necessitates a more nuanced assessment based on the vulnerability's characteristics.

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-2947 can be substantial, especially for those relying on IBM i 7.6 for mission-critical workloads. Successful exploitation would allow attackers to gain root access, compromising confidentiality by exposing sensitive business and customer data, integrity by enabling unauthorized modification of data and system configurations, and availability by potentially disrupting services through system manipulation or denial-of-service attacks. Given the IBM i platform’s use in sectors such as banking, manufacturing, and public administration across Europe, this vulnerability could lead to severe operational disruptions and regulatory compliance issues, including breaches of GDPR requirements. The ability to escalate privileges without authentication or user interaction (assuming the attacker has some level of command execution capability) increases the risk profile, as it lowers the barrier for internal or external threat actors to fully compromise affected systems. Additionally, the absence of known exploits in the wild suggests that organizations have a window to proactively address the issue before widespread attacks occur, but also means that detection mechanisms may not yet be mature.

To mitigate CVE-2025-2947, European organizations should prioritize the following actions: 1) Immediate review and restriction of access to OS commands that involve profile swapping, ensuring that only trusted administrators have execution rights. 2) Implement strict monitoring and logging of profile swapping commands and privilege escalation attempts to detect anomalous behavior early. 3) Apply any available patches or security updates from IBM as soon as they are released; if patches are not yet available, consider temporary compensating controls such as disabling or restricting vulnerable commands where feasible. 4) Conduct a thorough audit of user permissions and inherited privileges on IBM i systems to identify and remediate any excessive or unnecessary permissions that could be exploited. 5) Employ network segmentation and isolation for IBM i systems to limit exposure to potential attackers. 6) Educate system administrators about the risks associated with profile swapping commands and enforce the principle of least privilege in operational procedures. 7) Develop and test incident response plans specifically addressing privilege escalation scenarios on IBM i platforms to ensure rapid containment and recovery.