CVE-2026-17042
What it 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.
At a glance
- Exploitability
- Can be exploited locally on the machine with a low-privilege account. High risk of service disruption.
- Exploit odds
- 0.1% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days (EPSS).
- Fix
- A patch, advisory or fixed version is referenced. Upgrade or apply it.
Timeline
- PublishedDisclosed publicly on CVE.org and NVD
- Last updatedMost recent change to the record
Why it ranks here
- Exploited in the wild: no, CISA does not list it.
- Exploit odds: 0.1% in the next 30 days (EPSS).
- Severity: 7.3 HIGH (CVSS).
- Fix: a patch or advisory is linked.
Details
- Published
- Last modified
- Exploit probability
- 0.1% · EPSS, next 30 days
- Weakness
- CWE-125 · Out-of-bounds read
- Record status
- Analyzed
Affected
- IBM Power System s922 \(9009-22g\) Firmware < fw950.h3
- IBM Power System h922 \(9223-22s\) Firmware < fw950.h3
- IBM Power System s914 \(9009-41g\) Firmware < fw950.h3
- IBM Power System s924 \(9009-42g\) Firmware < fw950.h3
- IBM Power System h924 \(9223-42s\) Firmware < fw950.h3
- IBM Power System e950 \(9040-mr9\) Firmware < fw950.h3
- IBM Power System e980 \(9080-m9s\) Firmware < fw950.h3
- IBM Power System ac922 \(8335-gth\) Firmware < op940.a2
Attack profile CVSS 3.1 · 7.3
- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges needed
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- High
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:H
Is it in your code?
Hand this to your coding agent. It searches your project for the affected products and checks versions. Nothing leaves your machine.
Read https://cve-list.com/agent/cve/CVE-2026-17042.md and follow it. Check whether this project is affected by CVE-2026-17042. Read only. Don't change anything and don't upload my code. Tell me yes, no or not sure, with the file as proof.
