CVE-2026-84290: CWE-119 Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer in IBM Guardium Data Protection

CVE-2026-84290 is an improper restriction of operations within the bounds of a memory buffer vulnerability in IBM Guardium Data Protection 12.0, 12.1, and 12.2. The issue arises from inadequate validation of user-supplied pointers in the WfpMonitor kernel driver. Specifically, some METHOD_NEITHER IOCTL handlers dereference these pointers without proper probing or exception handling. This can allow a privileged local attacker to cause a denial of service via system crash or perform limited kernel memory reads.

A privileged local attacker can exploit this vulnerability to cause a system crash, resulting in denial of service, or read limited kernel memory. There is no indication of remote exploitation or privilege escalation beyond the existing privilege level. The impact is limited to confidentiality (partial kernel memory disclosure) and availability (system crash).

No patch or official fix information is provided in the available data. Patch status is not yet confirmed — check the IBM vendor advisory for current remediation guidance. Until a fix is available, restrict local access to trusted users only to mitigate risk.