CVE-2026-17472 in Concert
Summary
by MITRE • 09/23/2026
IBM Concert 1.0.0 through 3.0.0 could allow a remote authenticated attacker to access or modify unauthorized resources due to the use of wildcards in RBAC permission definitions.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/25/2026
The vulnerability identified in IBM Concert versions 1.0.0 through 3.0.0 represents a critical flaw within the application's Role-Based Access Control implementation, specifically stemming from the improper handling of wildcard characters in permission definitions. In secure access control architectures, wildcards are often utilized to simplify policy management by granting broad permissions for specific resource categories or actions. However, when these patterns are not strictly validated against an allow-list of acceptable scopes, they can be exploited to bypass intended security boundaries. This issue allows a remote authenticated attacker who has obtained valid credentials to traverse beyond their assigned role's privileges, effectively escalating their access level within the application environment.
From a technical perspective, this flaw is classified under CWE-284 Improper Access Control and aligns with MITRE ATT&CK technique T1078 Valid Accounts, as it relies on legitimate authentication tokens being misused due to flawed authorization logic rather than credential theft or exploitation of an unauthenticated entry point. The core technical deficiency lies in the RBAC engine's interpretation of permission strings containing wildcard characters such as asterisks or question marks. Instead of restricting these patterns to predefined safe subsets, the system applies them broadly across resource hierarchies. This means that a user granted access to read data within a specific department might inadvertently gain write access to sensitive configuration files or administrative endpoints if those resources fall under the matched pattern scope.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is significant for organizations relying on IBM Concert for workflow automation and collaboration, as it compromises the integrity and confidentiality of application data. An attacker leveraging this flaw can modify unauthorized resources, potentially altering critical system configurations, injecting malicious workflows, or exfiltrating sensitive business information that was not intended to be accessible by their user role. This undermines the principle of least privilege, which is fundamental to enterprise security postures, and could lead to broader systemic compromise if these elevated privileges are chained with other vulnerabilities for full control over the underlying infrastructure.
Mitigation strategies must focus on immediate remediation through software updates as well as architectural hardening in the interim. The primary solution is to upgrade IBM Concert to a version where this wildcard handling logic has been corrected, ensuring that permission definitions strictly adhere to explicit allow-lists rather than broad pattern matching. For environments unable to patch immediately, administrators should audit existing RBAC policies and replace any wildcard-based permissions with specific, granular role assignments. Additionally, implementing strict input validation on the server side for all permission-related API calls can help detect and block attempts to exploit these patterns before they are processed by the access control engine. Regular security audits of user roles and automated monitoring for anomalous privilege escalation activities are also recommended to maintain a robust defense-in-depth posture against such authorization bypasses.