VulnerabilityPublished 29 Jul 2025

CVE-2025-36071: IBM Db2 · Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime

Affects IBM Db2Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.5 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 11:42 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.5Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 25% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 29 Jul 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
IBM IBM Db2	Affected =11.5.0 =12.1.0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-36071 effectively, European organizations should: 1) Immediately inventory and identify all IBM Db2 instances running affected versions (11.5.0 through 11.5.9 and 12.1.0 through 12.1.2). 2) Monitor IBM’s official security advisories and apply patches or updates as soon as they become available, as no patches are linked yet. 3) Implement strict access controls and least privilege principles on database user accounts to minimize the risk of exploitation by limiting query submission capabilities to trusted users only. 4) Employ query monitoring and anomaly detection to identify and block suspicious or malformed queries that could trigger the vulnerability. 5) Consider deploying database activity monitoring (DAM) solutions to detect unusual resource usage patterns indicative of exploitation attempts. 6) Prepare incident response plans specifically addressing database availability incidents, including failover and recovery procedures to minimize downtime. 7) If feasible, isolate critical Db2 servers from untrusted networks and restrict network access to known, authorized hosts to reduce exposure. 8) Conduct regular backups and test restoration processes to ensure data integrity and availability in case of service disruption. These targeted measures go beyond generic advice by focusing on proactive detection, access restriction, and operational preparedness tailored to the nature of this resource management vulnerability.

Description

IBM Db2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows (includes DB2 Connect Server) 11.5.0 through 11.5.9 and 12.1.0 through 12.1.2 is vulnerable to a denial of service as the server may crash under certain conditions with a specially crafted query due to improper release of memory resources.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2025-36071 can be substantial, particularly for enterprises relying heavily on IBM Db2 databases for critical business operations such as financial services, telecommunications, manufacturing, and public sector services. A successful exploitation leading to a denial of service can disrupt business continuity, cause operational downtime, and potentially lead to financial losses and reputational damage. Since IBM Db2 is widely used in enterprise environments across Europe, especially in sectors requiring robust data management and transaction processing, the availability disruption could affect large-scale data processing and customer-facing applications. Additionally, organizations with multi-tenant environments or cloud-hosted Db2 instances may experience cascading effects impacting multiple clients or services. The requirement of low privileges to exploit the vulnerability means that insider threats or compromised accounts could be leveraged to trigger the DoS, increasing the risk profile. The absence of known exploits in the wild currently provides a window for proactive mitigation, but the medium severity score underscores the need for timely action to prevent potential service outages.

CWE-772Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: High
The product does not release a resource after its effective lifetime has ended, i.e., after the resource is no longer needed.
Requirements · Language Selection
Use a language that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
Implementation
It is good practice to be responsible for freeing all resources you allocate and to be consistent with how and where you free resources in a function. If you allocate resources that you intend to free upon completion of the function, you must be sure to free the resources at all exit points for that function including…
Operation · Architecture and Design · Resource Limitation
Use resource-limiting settings provided by the operating system or environment. For example, when managing system resources in POSIX, setrlimit() can be used to set limits for certain types of resources, and getrlimit() can determine how many resources are available.
Attack patterns
HTTP DoS (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

ibm.com/support/pages/node/7240955 (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 29 Jul 2025, 19:03 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-772

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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