Executive brief
A security vulnerability exists in the xdat utility within the IBM AIX operating system. This utility is used for data exploration and visualization. A local user with access to the system can exploit this flaw to gain full administrative (root) control, potentially leading to complete system compromise and unauthorized access to all hosted data.
Technical details
A buffer overflow vulnerability exists in the 'xdat' executable in IBM AIX. The flaw is triggered by insufficient bounds checking on input arguments or environment variables processed by the utility. Because the xdat binary typically runs with elevated privileges, a local, unprivileged attacker can exploit this overflow to overwrite memory and execute arbitrary code with root permissions. This is a classic local privilege escalation (LPE) vulnerability. Users should apply patches provided by the vendor or restrict access to the affected binary.
Affected products
- IBM AIX
Timeline
- 1997-10-22: disclosed