Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessReach network-exposed DataPower service
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DeliverySend crafted request with malformed input
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ExploitTrigger improper input validation / out-of-bounds write
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ExecutionCrash or hang gateway process
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ImpactDeny service to brokered traffic
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
ASVS 5.0
V15 - Secure Coding and Architecture Bounds checking, write limits
MITRE ATT&CK
2 techniques across 2 tactics: Execution, Privilege Escalation The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation requires network reachability to an affected IBM DataPower Gateway instance (versions 10.5.0.0-10.5.0.22, 10.6.0.0-10.6.0.10, 10.6.1-10.6.6, or 11.0.0.0-11.0.0.2) exposing the vulnerable service that performs the improper input validation; the attacker sends crafted/malformed input that is not properly validated. Per CVSS PR:N/UI:N it needs no authentication and no user interaction. The primary limiting factor is exposure: the impact is availability-only (service crash/DoS), so risk is concentrated on gateways whose vulnerable interface is reachable by untrusted networks, and it is mitigated by upgrading to a fixed IBM release. |
| Impact | This is a genuine but bounded availability risk. The CVSS 3.1 vector (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H, base 7.5) describes a network-reachable, low-complexity, unauthenticated flaw with impact restricted entirely to availability - no confidentiality or integrity loss. That profile makes it a service-disruption issue, not a code-execution or data-breach issue, despite the 'Buffer Overflow' and 'Memory Corruption' tags and the CWE-787 (out-of-bounds write) classification, which would normally suggest potential for code execution; the vendor-scored impact (C:N/I:N) indicates the condition manifests only as a crash/DoS. No EPSS score, CISA KEV listing, POC, or SSVC decision data was provided, so exploitation likelihood cannot be quantified from the input - status is 'no public exploit identified at time of analysis.' Because DataPower is typically an internet- or partner-facing gateway, an unauthenticated network DoS against a security/integration chokepoint is operationally meaningful and should be patched on a normal-to-elevated schedule, but there is no evidence of active or imminent widespread exploitation. Note the signal tension to verify with IBM: memory-corruption/CWE-787 indicators vs. availability-only scored impact - confirm whether the condition is strictly a crash or could be escalated. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A remote, unauthenticated attacker sends a specially crafted request to a network-exposed IBM DataPower Gateway service that is improperly validated, triggering an out-of-bounds write that crashes or hangs the gateway and interrupts the traffic it brokers. Because no authentication or user interaction is required and complexity is low, the request can be repeated to sustain the outage. No public exploit code is identified in the provided data. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Oct 08, 2026
Denial of service in IBM DataPower Gateway allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to crash or degrade an affected gateway by sending crafted input that the product fails to validate correctly, resulting in an out-of-bounds write in memory. All four supported release trains are affected: 10.5.0.0 through 10.5.0.22, 10.6.0.0 through 10.6.0.10, 10.6.1 through 10.6.6, and 11.0.0.0 through 11.0.0.2. The CVSS 3.1 vector (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H, score 7.5) confirms the attack is launched over the network with no authentication and no user interaction, and that the sole impact is availability - there is no confidentiality or integrity loss, so the risk is bounded to service outage on gateways whose vulnerable interface is reachable from untrusted networks. No public exploit code has been identified at time of analysis, no EPSS score was supplied, and CISA KEV does not list this CVE.
RemediationAI
Apply the IBM fix identified in the vendor advisory at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7289775; IBM has published this security bulletin for CVE-2026-16178 and the advisory should be used to determine the exact fixed build for each of the 10.5.0.x, 10.6.0.x, 10.6.1-10.6.6, and 11.0.0.x trains, since no specific patched version number was supplied in the available intelligence. Until the upgrade is completed, the most effective compensating control is exposure reduction: place the vulnerable DataPower interface behind network segmentation or firewall rules that permit only trusted management and client subnets, acknowledging that this will break legitimate access for any external consumers of that service. Additional practical measures include rate-limiting or throttling inbound traffic to the affected endpoint (which only slows, not prevents, a determined trigger), enabling health-check-driven automatic restarts, and relying on DataPower high-availability or load-balancer failover so a crash produces a brief failover event rather than an outage (at the cost of repeated disruption if the trigger is replayed). Because the impact is availability-only, no data-integrity or confidentiality remediation is required, but monitoring for unexpected process restarts or gateway failovers will help detect exploitation attempts.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 4 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 class is CWE-787, out-of-bounds write - a memory-safety defect in which a buffer length or boundary is not checked before data is written, corrupting adjacent memory. In IBM DataPower Gateway this manifests through improper input validation: a crafted request reaching the affected service is parsed or copied without adequate bounds checking, producing memory corruption that typically terminates the process (denial of service) rather than yielding code execution in the assessed scenario. IBM's own tagging classifies the issue as buffer overflow, memory corruption, and denial of service, which is consistent with the availability-only CVSS impact (C:N/I:N/A:H). No CPE strings were supplied in the intelligence feed, so exact platform/edition coverage beyond the version list in the vendor advisory (https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7289775) could not be independently enumerated; the affected scope should be treated as the DataPower Gateway firmware releases named above, irrespective of whether they run as physical appliances, virtual editions, or containerized deployments.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Remote unauthenticated malformed input with no interaction gives AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N; impact is a crash only, so C:N/I:N/A:H and scope unchanged.
Primary rating from Vendor (us).
CVSS VectorVendor: us
DescriptionCVE.org
IBM DataPower Gateway 10.5.0.0 through 10.5.0.22, 10.6.1 through 10.6.6, 10.6.0.0 through 10.6.0.10, 11.0.0.0 through 11.0.0.2 could allow a remote attacker to cause a denial of service due to improper input validation.
Executive ViewAI
IBM DataPower Gateway, a core component in many organizations' API and integration traffic paths, is exposed to a remotely triggerable crash across every currently supported release train, and IBM has not yet shipped a fix. Because the flaw requires no credentials and no user interaction, any internet- or partner-facing gateway instance is a candidate target, and a successful attempt takes down the services that depend on it rather than exposing data. Leadership should treat this as a service-availability and resilience exposure for customer-facing APIs and internal integrations, not as a data-breach risk.
No vendor-released patch identified at time of analysis. Interim mitigations: restrict network access to DataPower management and data interfaces to trusted sources only via firewall, security group, and load-balancer ACL changes; deploy segmentation plus WAF/IPS filtering of malformed input and rate limiting on exposed listeners; monitor for gateway crashes, restarts, and latency spikes with alerting; ensure HA/failover and tested recovery runbooks to sustain availability through an outage; engage IBM support for advisory status and any interim fix.
Threat Intelligence Overview
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
A buffer overflow occurs when a program writes more data to a memory buffer than it was allocated to hold, causing the excess data to spill into adjacent memory regions.
Memory corruption occurs when a program writes data beyond the boundaries of allocated memory regions or accesses memory in unintended ways, violating the integrity of the process's address space.
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
More in Datapower Gateway
View allRemote, unauthenticated code execution is possible in IBM DataPower Gateway versions 10.5.0.0 through 10.5.0.22, 10.6.0.
IBM DataPower Gateway 7.6.0.0-7 throug 6.0.14 and 2018.4.1.0 through 2018.4.1.5 have a default administrator account tha
IBM DataPower Gateway 10.0.2.0 through 10.0.4.0, 10.0.1.0 through 10.0.1.8, 10.5.0.0, and 2018.4.1.0 through 2018.4.1.21
IBM DataPower Gateway V10CD, 10.0.1, and 2018.4.1 is vulnerable to cross-site request forgery which could allow an attac
IBM DataPower Gateway 10.0.2.0 through 10.0.4.0, 10.0.1.0 through 10.0.1.8, 10.5.0.0, and 2018.4.1.0 through 2018.4.1.21
IBM DataPower Gateways 7.5, 7.5.1, 7.5.2, and 7.6 is vulnerable to cross-site request forgery which could allow an attac
IBM DataPower Gateway 2018.4.1.0 through 2018.4.1.6, 7.6.0.0 through 7.6.0.15 and IBM MQ Appliance 8.0.0.0 through 8.0.0
IBM DataPower Gateway 7.1.0.0 - 7.1.0.23, 7.2.0.0 - 7.2.0.21, 7.5.0.0 - 7.5.0.16, 7.5.1.0 - 7.5.1.15, 7.5.2.0 - 7.5.2.15
A heap buffer overflow in IBM DataPower Gateway (affected firmware levels 10.5.0.0 through 10.5.0.22, 10.6.0.0 through 1
Denial of service in IBM DataPower Gateway allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to crash or exhaust the message-pro
Unauthenticated remote attackers can exhaust system resources on IBM DataPower Gateway firmware releases 11.0.0.0 throug
A heap buffer underwrite in IBM DataPower Gateway allows unauthenticated remote attackers to crash the gateway service,
EUVD-2026-94889
GHSA-wv6r-g2f4-mjm7
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
Exploit-DB