IBM WebSphere Extreme Scale up to 8.6.1.6 XDF Decoder resource consumption

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability has been found in IBM WebSphere Extreme Scale up to 8.6.1.6 and classified as problematic. The impacted element is an unknown function of the component XDF Decoder. The manipulation leads to resource consumption. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2026-9002. Access to the local network is required for this attack to succeed. There is no exploit available. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in IBM WebSphere Extreme Scale up to 8.6.1.6 and classified as problematic. This issue affects an unknown part of the component XDF Decoder. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a resource consumption vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-400. The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource, thereby enabling an actor to influence the amount of resources consumed, eventually leading to the exhaustion of available resources. Impacted is availability. The summary by CVE is:

IBM WebSphere Extreme Scale 8.6.1.0 through 8.6.1.6 could allow an adjacent attacker to cause a denial of service due to improper validation in the XDF decoder. The application processes deeply nested Protocol Buffers messages and attacker-controlled length prefixes without sufficient bounds checking, which may allow an attacker on the same network to trigger a StackOverflowError or OutOfMemoryError, resulting in a crash of the WebSphere Application Server JVM.

The advisory is shared at ibm.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-9002 since 05/19/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack needs to be done within the local network. No form of authentication is needed for a successful exploitation. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 07/01/2026).

Upgrading eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Type

• Application Server Software

Vendor

• IBM

Name

• WebSphere Extreme Scale

Version

• 8.6.1.0
• 8.6.1.1
• 8.6.1.2
• 8.6.1.3
• 8.6.1.4
• 8.6.1.5
• 8.6.1.6

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.ibm.com/

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