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 within the system. Specifically, this is categorized under CWE-250, which refers to execution with unnecessary privileges. In this context, the cronjob runs with higher privileges than required, creating an attack vector 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 or root-level access. The CVSS v3.1 base score is 7.8, indicating a high severity level. The vector string (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) reveals that the attack requires local access (AV:L), low attack complexity (AC:L), low privileges (PR:L), no user interaction (UI:N), 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, but the vulnerability’s nature makes it a significant risk if exploited. Since QRadar SIEM is a critical security information and event management platform used for threat detection and response, compromise of its privileges can lead to severe security breaches, including manipulation or suppression of security logs, unauthorized access to sensitive data, and disruption of security monitoring capabilities.

For European organizations, the impact of this vulnerability can be substantial. QRadar SIEM is widely used by enterprises, government agencies, and critical infrastructure operators across Europe for centralized security monitoring and incident response. Exploitation of this vulnerability could allow attackers to gain unauthorized administrative control over the SIEM platform, enabling them to tamper with security logs, hide malicious activities, or disable alerting mechanisms. This undermines the integrity and reliability of security operations, potentially allowing further undetected intrusions or data breaches. Given the GDPR and other stringent data protection regulations in Europe, such a compromise could lead to significant legal and financial repercussions, including fines and reputational damage. Additionally, sectors such as finance, energy, telecommunications, and public administration, which heavily rely on SIEM solutions for compliance and security, would be particularly vulnerable to operational disruption and data loss.

To mitigate this vulnerability, European organizations should: 1) Immediately review and audit the configuration of cronjobs on affected QRadar SIEM systems to identify any that run with elevated privileges unnecessarily. 2) Apply the principle of least privilege by ensuring cronjobs execute with only the minimum required permissions. 3) Monitor and restrict authenticated user access, especially limiting the number of users with any level of access to QRadar SIEM. 4) Implement strict access controls and multi-factor authentication to reduce the risk of unauthorized access. 5) Regularly update and patch QRadar SIEM installations as IBM releases fixes or security updates addressing this vulnerability. 6) Conduct thorough security assessments and penetration testing focused on privilege escalation vectors within the SIEM environment. 7) Enhance logging and monitoring to detect unusual privilege escalation attempts or abnormal cronjob executions. 8) Consider network segmentation and isolation of QRadar SIEM servers to limit lateral movement if a compromise occurs. These steps go beyond generic advice by focusing on configuration auditing, privilege minimization, and proactive detection tailored to the nature of this vulnerability.