ibm aix CVE-2026-16866 vulnerability in IBM Products
Published on August 19, 2026

Vulnerabilities in IBM AIX and PowerVM VIOS
IBM AIX 7.2, and 7.3 and IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1 could allow a remote attacker to cause a denial of service due to an out-of-bounds read.

Vendor Advisory NVD

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2026-16866 is exploitable with network access, and does not require authorization privileges or user interaction. This vulnerability is consided to have a high level of attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have no impact on confidentiality, with no impact on integrity and availability.

Attack Vector:
NETWORK
Attack Complexity:
HIGH
Privileges Required:
NONE
User Interaction:
NONE
Scope:
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact:
NONE
Integrity Impact:
LOW
Availability Impact:
LOW

Weakness Type

Out-of-bounds Read

The software reads data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer. Typically, this can allow attackers to read sensitive information from other memory locations or cause a crash. A crash can occur when the code reads a variable amount of data and assumes that a sentinel exists to stop the read operation, such as a NUL in a string. The expected sentinel might not be located in the out-of-bounds memory, causing excessive data to be read, leading to a segmentation fault or a buffer overflow. The software may modify an index or perform pointer arithmetic that references a memory location that is outside of the boundaries of the buffer. A subsequent read operation then produces undefined or unexpected results.


Products Associated with CVE-2026-16866

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Affected Versions

IBM AIX: IBM PowerVM VIOS: