CVE-2026-16176 in DataPower Gateway
Summary
by MITRE • 10/08/2026
IBM DataPower Gateway 10.5.0.0 through 10.5.0.22, 10.6.1 through 10.6.6, 10.6.0.0 through 10.6.0.10, 11.0.0.0 through 11.0.0.2 could allow a remote attacker to cause a denial of service due to improper validation of the length field during memory reallocation.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/08/2026
The vulnerability identified in IBM DataPower Gateway versions ranging from 10.5.0.0 through 10.5.0.22, as well as various releases within the 10.6 and 11.0 series including 10.6.1 through 10.6.6 and 10.6.0.0 through 10.6.0.10, represents a critical flaw in memory management logic during network packet processing. This issue stems from an improper validation of the length field associated with data structures undergoing reallocation. In high-performance gateway appliances like DataPower, efficient handling of incoming and outgoing traffic is paramount for maintaining service availability across enterprise networks. When the system receives specific malformed or crafted input that triggers a memory reallocation operation, it fails to adequately verify whether the specified length value is within acceptable bounds relative to available resources or existing buffer constraints. This lack of rigorous boundary checking allows an attacker to manipulate internal state in ways that destabilize the application's execution environment.
From a technical perspective, this flaw aligns with CWE-134, which describes the use of externally-controlled values for untrusted inputs without proper validation, specifically leading to resource exhaustion or denial of service conditions. The core mechanism involves the gateway attempting to resize memory buffers based on length fields extracted from network payloads. If an attacker provides a length value that is excessively large or structurally inconsistent with the actual data present, the underlying C/C++ runtime may attempt to allocate more memory than is available or safe for the process heap. This can result in allocation failures, buffer overflows, or infinite loops within the reallocation routine depending on how the specific version handles error conditions during failed allocations. The absence of strict validation means that maliciously crafted packets can exploit this logic gap repeatedly, forcing the gateway into a degraded state where it cannot properly service legitimate requests.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is primarily characterized by a denial of service against the IBM DataPower Gateway infrastructure. Since these appliances often serve as critical entry points for API gateways, web services, and enterprise application integration workflows, their unavailability can disrupt entire business operations. An attacker does not necessarily need to execute arbitrary code or gain unauthorized access to sensitive data; simply triggering this flaw is sufficient to degrade performance significantly or cause a complete crash of the gateway process. This leads to service outages for downstream applications that rely on DataPower for protocol translation, security policy enforcement, and traffic routing. The ease with which such an attack can be launched makes it particularly dangerous in environments where automated scanning tools are frequently deployed against public-facing endpoints.
This vulnerability is categorized under MITRE ATT&CK technique T1499, specifically Endpoint Denial of Service, as it involves the exploitation of a software flaw to disrupt normal operations rather than compromising confidentiality or integrity directly. It also relates to CWE-20, Improper Input Validation, highlighting the failure to sanitize and verify input data before processing. To mitigate this risk, organizations running affected versions must apply the latest security patches provided by IBM immediately. Until patching is feasible, network-level mitigations such as strict rate limiting on incoming connections can help reduce the volume of requests processed per second, thereby lowering the probability of triggering the flaw through volumetric attacks. Additionally, deploying Web Application Firewalls with deep packet inspection capabilities configured to detect anomalous length fields or malformed XML/JSON structures may provide a layer of defense by dropping suspicious traffic before it reaches the vulnerable application logic within DataPower.