IBM Power Systems up to FW950.H2/OP940.a1/OP940.81 NVRAM Parsing memory corruption

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in IBM Power Systems up to FW950.H2/OP940.a1/OP940.81. It has been rated as problematic. This issue affects some unknown processing of the component NVRAM Parsing. Performing a manipulation results in memory corruption. This vulnerability is cataloged as CVE-2026-17042. The attack must be initiated from a local position. There is no exploit available.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as problematic has been found in IBM Power Systems up to FW950.H2/OP940.a1/OP940.81. This affects an unknown function of the component NVRAM Parsing. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory corruption vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-119. The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it can read from or write to a memory location that is outside of the intended boundary of the buffer. This is going to have an impact on integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

IBM Power Systems Firmware FW950.00 through FW950.H2, OP940.00 through OP940.a1 (Power9), and OP940.00 - OP940.81 (Power HMC) is affected by a vulnerability in host firmware NVRAM parsing. An attacker with root access to a guest partition on an OpenPOWER system can write a specially crafted NVRAM image, causing the host firmware boot stage to crash with possible memory corruption. This condition persists until operator intervention — clearing NVRAM via the service processor — to restore normal operation. This vulnerability only affects OpenPOWER systems; systems running PowerVM are not affected. Successful exploitation results in an integrity and availability impact to the managed system.

The advisory is shared at ibm.com. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-17042 since 07/24/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. An attack has to be approached locally. Additional levels of successful authentication are needed for 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 08/19/2026).

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

Productinfo

Vendor

• IBM

Name

• Power Systems

Version

• FW950.H2
• OP940.0
• OP940.1
• OP940.2
• OP940.3
• OP940.4
• OP940.5
• OP940.6
• OP940.7
• OP940.8
• OP940.9
• OP940.10
• OP940.11
• OP940.12
• OP940.13
• OP940.14
• OP940.15
• OP940.16
• OP940.17
• OP940.18
• OP940.19
• OP940.20
• OP940.21
• OP940.22
• OP940.23
• OP940.24
• OP940.25
• OP940.26
• OP940.27
• OP940.28
• OP940.29
• OP940.30
• OP940.31
• OP940.32
• OP940.33
• OP940.34
• OP940.35
• OP940.36
• OP940.37
• OP940.38
• OP940.39
• OP940.40
• OP940.41
• OP940.42
• OP940.43
• OP940.44
• OP940.45
• OP940.46
• OP940.47
• OP940.48
• OP940.49
• OP940.50
• OP940.51
• OP940.52
• OP940.53
• OP940.54
• OP940.55
• OP940.56
• OP940.57
• OP940.58
• OP940.59
• OP940.60
• OP940.61
• OP940.62
• OP940.63
• OP940.64
• OP940.65
• OP940.66
• OP940.67
• OP940.68
• OP940.69
• OP940.70
• OP940.71
• OP940.72
• OP940.73
• OP940.74
• OP940.75
• OP940.76
• OP940.77
• OP940.78
• OP940.79
• OP940.80
• OP940.81
• OP940.a1

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.ibm.com/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Entryinfo

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