CVE-2025-33120 is a high-severity vulnerability affecting IBM QRadar SIEM versions 7.5 through 7.5.0 UP13. The vulnerability arises from a misconfigured cronjob that executes with unnecessary elevated privileges, allowing an authenticated user with limited privileges to escalate their privileges on the system. Specifically, this is a CWE-250 type vulnerability, which relates to execution with unnecessary privileges. In this case, the cronjob runs with higher privileges than required, creating an opportunity for privilege escalation. An attacker who already has some level of authenticated access to the QRadar SIEM system can exploit this flaw to gain higher privileges, potentially administrative-level access. The CVSS v3.1 base score is 7.8, indicating a high severity, with the vector AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H. This means the attack requires local access (AV:L), low attack complexity (AC:L), low privileges (PR:L), no user interaction (UI:N), unchanged scope (S:U), and impacts confidentiality, integrity, and availability to a high degree (C:H/I:H/A:H). No known exploits are currently reported in the wild, and no patch links are provided yet, indicating that remediation may still be pending or in progress. The vulnerability is significant because QRadar SIEM is a critical security information and event management platform widely used for monitoring and managing security events. Privilege escalation within such a system can lead to full compromise of security monitoring capabilities, data exfiltration, tampering with logs, and undermining incident response efforts.

For European organizations, the impact of this vulnerability could be severe. QRadar SIEM is commonly deployed in enterprises, government agencies, and critical infrastructure sectors across Europe for centralized security monitoring and compliance. Exploitation of this vulnerability would allow an attacker with initial access to escalate privileges and potentially take full control of the SIEM platform. This could result in unauthorized access to sensitive security logs, manipulation or deletion of event data, and disruption of security monitoring operations. The confidentiality, integrity, and availability of security data would be compromised, undermining trust in security controls and potentially allowing attackers to operate undetected. Given the GDPR and other stringent data protection regulations in Europe, such a compromise could also lead to regulatory penalties and reputational damage. Additionally, critical sectors such as finance, energy, telecommunications, and government entities that rely heavily on QRadar for security operations would be at heightened risk of targeted attacks leveraging this vulnerability.

To mitigate this vulnerability, European organizations using IBM QRadar SIEM 7.5 through 7.5.0 UP13 should take the following specific actions: 1) Immediately review and audit all cronjobs configured on QRadar systems to identify any that run with elevated privileges unnecessarily. 2) Restrict cronjob execution privileges to the minimum required, following the principle of least privilege. 3) Implement strict access controls and monitoring for authenticated users, especially those with low privileges, to detect any unusual privilege escalation attempts. 4) Apply any available vendor patches or updates as soon as IBM releases them addressing CVE-2025-33120. 5) In the absence of patches, consider temporary compensating controls such as disabling or reconfiguring the vulnerable cronjob if feasible without disrupting operations. 6) Enhance logging and alerting around privilege escalation activities and cronjob executions to enable rapid detection and response. 7) Conduct regular security assessments and penetration tests focusing on privilege escalation vectors within the SIEM environment. 8) Educate administrators and security teams about this vulnerability and ensure strict operational security practices are followed to minimize risk.