VulnerabilityPublished 2 Feb 2026Updated 4 Feb 2026

CVE-2025-36238: IBM PowerVM Hypervisor · Exposure of Sensitive System Information to an Unauthorized Control Sphere

Affects IBM PowerVM HypervisorSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.0 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.0Medium

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

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 6% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: High
User Interaction: None
Scope: Changed
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: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: High: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide significant (e.g., administrative) control over the vulnerable component that could affect component-wide settings and files.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
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 2 Feb 2026
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
IBMPowerVM Hypervisor	Affected ≥ FW1110.00, ≤ FW1110.03 ≥ FW1060.00, ≤ FW1060.51 ≥ FW950.00, ≤ FW950.F0	Fixed in–

CPE configurations (12)

cpe:2.3:a:ibm:powervm_hypervisor:fw1110.00:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:ibm:powervm_hypervisor:fw1110.00.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:ibm:powervm_hypervisor:fw1110.03:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:ibm:powervm_hypervisor:fw1110.03.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:ibm:powervm_hypervisor:fw1060.00:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:ibm:powervm_hypervisor:fw1060.00.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

AI-suggested

Monitor IBM’s official security advisories closely and apply patches or firmware updates as soon as they become available to address CVE-2025-36238.
Restrict administrative access to the PowerVM hypervisor hosts to only trusted personnel and enforce strict access controls and multi-factor authentication to reduce the risk of privileged account compromise.
Implement robust auditing and logging of PowerVM service procedure usage to detect anomalous or unauthorized attempts to access vTPM data.
Segment management networks and isolate hypervisor hosts from general user networks to limit the attack surface for local privilege escalation.
Conduct regular security assessments and penetration testing focused on hypervisor environments to identify potential privilege escalation paths.
Educate system administrators about the risks associated with privileged access and the importance of safeguarding credentials and access methods.
Consider deploying additional encryption or key management solutions external to the vTPM where feasible, to reduce reliance on a single point of failure.
Establish incident response plans that include scenarios involving hypervisor-level data exposure to ensure rapid containment and remediation.

Description

IBM PowerVM Hypervisor FW1110.00 through FW1110.03, FW1060.00 through FW1060.51, and FW950.00 through FW950.F0 could allow a local user with administration privileges to obtain sensitive information from a Virtual TPM through a series of PowerVM service procedures.

Impact

For European organizations, the primary impact of CVE-2025-36238 is the potential compromise of sensitive cryptographic material stored within virtualized environments leveraging IBM PowerVM Hypervisor. This could lead to unauthorized disclosure of encryption keys or other secrets managed by the vTPM, weakening the security posture of virtual machines and potentially enabling further attacks such as unauthorized data access or lateral movement within the network. Confidentiality breaches in critical infrastructure sectors—such as finance, government, telecommunications, and energy—could have severe operational and reputational consequences. Although the vulnerability requires local administrative access, insider threats or attackers who have already gained privileged access could exploit this flaw to escalate their capabilities. The absence of impact on integrity and availability limits the risk of direct service disruption, but the confidentiality loss alone is significant given the sensitive nature of vTPM data. European entities with compliance obligations around data protection (e.g., GDPR) must consider the implications of this vulnerability on their security controls and incident response strategies.

CWE-497Exposure of Sensitive System Information to an Unauthorized Control Sphere (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessOWASP Top 10 A01:2025: Broken Access Control (opens in a new tab)
The product does not properly prevent sensitive system-level information from being accessed by unauthorized actors who do not have the same level of access to the underlying system as the product does.
Architecture and Design · Implementation
Production applications should never use methods that generate internal details such as stack traces and error messages unless that information is directly committed to a log that is not viewable by the end user.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Error Handling (opens in a new tab)
Authorization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V14.3.2 (opens in a new tab)
V8.3.4 (opens in a new tab)
V14.3.3 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Web Application Fingerprinting (opens in a new tab)
System Location Discovery (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

ibm.com/support/pages/node/7257556 (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

CPE configurations (12)

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 10 Feb 2026, 10:46 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-497

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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