CVE-2025-36158VulnerabilityPublished 20 Nov 2025

CVE-2025-36158: IBM Concert · Uncontrolled Recursion

Affects IBM ConcertSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.1 Medium.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.1Medium

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

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 1% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

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

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

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: High: A successful attack depends on conditions beyond the attacker's control. That is, a successful attack cannot be accomplished at will, but requires the attacker to invest in some measurable amount of effort in preparation or execution against the vulnerable component before a successful attack can be expected. For example, a successful attack may require an attacker to: gather knowledge about the environment in which the vulnerable target/component exists; prepare the target environment to improve exploit reliability; or inject themselves into the logical network path between the target and the resource requested by the victim in order to read and/or modify network communications (e.g., a man in the middle attack).
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
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: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 20 Nov 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 2026-10-25.

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 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 Concert	Affected =1.0.0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

European organizations should immediately audit and restrict local user permissions on systems running IBM Concert to the minimum necessary, ensuring that only trusted users have the specific permissions required to trigger the vulnerability. Implement strict access controls and monitoring to detect unusual recursive directory operations or file access patterns. Employ host-based intrusion detection systems (HIDS) to alert on suspicious local activities. Segregate systems running IBM Concert from general user environments to limit local access. Regularly back up sensitive data and maintain an incident response plan tailored to data exposure scenarios. Engage with IBM support channels to obtain updates on patches or workarounds and apply them promptly once available. Additionally, conduct user training to raise awareness about the risks of local privilege misuse and enforce strong endpoint security policies to prevent unauthorized local access.

Description

IBM Concert 1.0.0 through 2.0.0 could allow a local user with specific permission to obtain sensitive information from files due to uncontrolled recursive directory copying.

Impact

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a risk of unauthorized local access to sensitive information, potentially including intellectual property, confidential business documents, or personal data protected under GDPR. The confidentiality breach could lead to regulatory penalties, reputational damage, and competitive disadvantage. Since exploitation requires local access and specific permissions, the threat is more significant in environments with many users or insufficient privilege separation. Organizations in sectors such as finance, manufacturing, and government, which often use IBM enterprise products, may face higher risks. The lack of integrity and availability impact limits the threat to data leakage rather than system disruption, but the exposure of sensitive data can still have severe consequences. The absence of known exploits reduces immediate risk but does not eliminate the threat, especially as attackers may develop exploits once the vulnerability becomes widely known.

CWE-674Uncontrolled Recursion (opens in a new tab)
Class weakness
The product does not properly control the amount of recursion that takes place, consuming excessive resources, such as allocated memory or the program stack.
Implementation
Ensure that an end condition will be reached under all logic conditions. The end condition may include checking against the depth of recursion and exiting with an error if the recursion goes too deep. The complexity of the end condition contributes to the effectiveness of this action.
Implementation
Increase the stack size.
Attack patterns
Serialized Data with Nested Payloads (opens in a new tab)
Oversized Serialized Data Payloads (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

ibm.com/support/pages/node/7252019 (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 20 Nov 2025, 21:29 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-674

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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