EUVD-2026-104468
GHSA-4vv9-m5xv-x4cc
Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessAuthenticate to MQ with publish rights
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ExploitCraft message with malformed RFH2 header
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ExecutionSubmit via queued publish/subscribe
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ImpactTrigger resource exhaustion and deny service
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A06:2025 - Insecure Design
ASVS 5.0
V2 - Validation and Business Logic Resource consumption limits
MITRE ATT&CK
1 technique across 1 tactic: Impact The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation requires (1) valid IBM MQ credentials with authorization to perform queued publish/subscribe operations (consistent with PR:L), and (2) the queued publish/subscribe (pub/sub) messaging feature being in use, since the flaw lies in parsing RFH2 message header fields submitted through that path. The limiting factors are the authentication requirement - the attacker is an authenticated MQ user, not an anonymous remote party - and the dependency on pub/sub messaging being enabled and reachable; queue managers that do not expose queued pub/sub to the attacker's principal are not exposed. Impact is limited to denial of service; there is no data disclosure or modification. Affected deployments per the CPEs are the IBM MQ Operator and MQ Advanced container images. |
| Impact | This is a moderate-priority, availability-only issue rather than a top-tier emergency. The provided CVSS 3.1 vector (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H, base 6.5) indicates a network-reachable, low-complexity attack that requires low-level authentication and yields high impact strictly to availability (denial of service) with no confidentiality or integrity impact - consistent with the CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) classification and the description. No EPSS score, KEV listing, or public POC is present in the supplied intelligence, so there is no evidence of active exploitation or weaponization; exploitation status is best characterized as no public exploit identified at time of analysis. The signals are internally consistent (authenticated network DoS), with no contradictions between the CVSS vector and the description. The main risk amplifier is that IBM MQ frequently sits at the core of enterprise messaging, so even an authenticated DoS can disrupt dependent business systems; the main risk limiter is the PR:L requirement, meaning the attacker must already hold valid MQ credentials with publish rights. EPSS is absent (not low - simply not provided), so probabilistic exploitation likelihood cannot be quantified from this data. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker who already possesses valid IBM MQ credentials with rights to perform queued publish/subscribe operations connects over the network and submits a message containing a malformed or improperly populated RFH2 header. The server's improper validation of these header fields triggers uncontrolled resource consumption, disrupting the queue manager and denying service to legitimate messaging clients. No public exploit code is identified in the available intelligence. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Oct 19, 2026
Authenticated users of IBM MQ Operator and IBM MQ Advanced container image deployments can cause a denial of service against the queue manager by submitting malformed RFH2 message header fields through queued publish/subscribe operations. The flaw is rated CVSS 6.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H), reflecting high availability impact only - there is no disclosure or modification of message data - and requires valid MQ credentials with authorization to publish or subscribe, so anonymous remote parties are not positioned to exploit it. No public exploit code or confirmed active exploitation was identified at time of analysis, and the vendor has published remediation guidance; the practical exposure is limited to environments that both grant the attacker a usable principal and expose queued pub/sub messaging.
RemediationAI
Apply the vendor-supplied fix: IBM states a patch is available and publishes the applicable IBM MQ Operator and MQ Advanced container image updates through the advisory at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7292667 - pull the corrected container image tags or operator release named there and redeploy, since exact fix versions are not enumerated in the available data. Where immediate upgrade is not possible, reduce exposure by tightening MQ authorization so only trusted principals hold publish/subscribe (topic and queue) permissions, since exploitation requires an authenticated user with pub/sub rights; note this restricts legitimate publishing applications and requires an authorization review. If queued pub/sub is not operationally required, disable it and remove the associated topic/queue definitions, accepting the loss of that messaging pattern. Restrict network reachability to the queue manager's messaging channels to trusted hosts, and monitor for repeated malformed RFH2 message rejections or queue manager restarts as an indicator of attempted abuse. Patching remains the primary remediation; the workarounds reduce but do not eliminate the risk.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 2 packages in euvd
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
The root cause is CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) arising from improper validation of RFH2 header fields. RFH2 is IBM MQ's message header structure used to carry publish/subscribe and JMS-style properties alongside the message body; queued pub/sub routes publications through queues to subscribing applications rather than delivering directly to connected consumers. When header fields in that path are not properly validated, a crafted message can drive the queue manager into a resource-exhausting or faulting state, degrading or stopping message flow. The affected components per the supplied CPE data are IBM MQ Operator (cpe:2.3:a:ibm:mq_operator) and IBM MQ Advanced container images (cpe:2.3:a:ibm:mq_advanced_container_images); the CPE version fields are wildcards, so the precise affected build ranges must be confirmed against IBM's advisory rather than inferred. Because the attack surface is the messaging path itself, exposure depends on whether the attacker's principal has publish/subscribe authorization and whether queued pub/sub is enabled and reachable from their network position.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Network-reachable messaging service with low complexity; attacker must hold MQ publish credentials so PR:L; impact is availability-only DoS, hence C:N/I:N/A:H.
Primary rating from Vendor (ibm).
CVSS VectorVendor: ibm
DescriptionCVE.org
IBM MQ could allow an authenticated attacker to cause a denial of service due to improper validation of RFH2 message header fields in queued publish/subscribe operations.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
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