Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-43040

Ibm Storage Fusion Hci 2.5.2 – 2.8.0

Published
14 May 2024
Modified
04 November 2025
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 6.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:L
EPSS Score 0.025 84th percentile
Risk Priority 59 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2023-43040 is a medium-severity Insufficient Granularity of Access Control (CWE-1220) vulnerability in Ibm Storage Fusion Hci. Its CVSS base score is 6.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Services File Permissions Weakness (T1574.010); ranked in the top 16% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-24 (Access Control Decisions) and AC-3 (Access Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary

Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.

IBM Spectrum Fusion HCI versions 2.5.2 through 2.7.2 contain a vulnerability that permits unauthorized actions against the RGW component of Ceph because of improper bucket access controls. The flaw is tracked under CWE-1220 and carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 6.5 reflecting network attack vector, high attack complexity, and no required privileges or user interaction.

An unauthenticated remote attacker can leverage the issue to alter data (high integrity impact) and to a lesser extent disrupt availability within the affected Ceph RGW environment. Exploitation requires no credentials and can be performed over the network, although the high complexity rating indicates non-trivial conditions must be met.

The associated EPSS score reached a peak of 0.1017 before receding to the current value of 0.0759, indicating limited sustained exploitation interest after disclosure. IBM has published remediation guidance at the referenced support page for affected Spectrum Fusion HCI deployments.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

IBM Spectrum Fusion HCI 2.5.2 through 2.7.2 could allow an attacker to perform unauthorized actions in RGW for Ceph due to improper bucket access. IBM X-Force ID: 266807.

CWE(s)
CWE-1220

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1574.010 Services File Permissions Weakness Stealth
Adversaries may execute their own malicious payloads by hijacking the binaries used by services.
attack.mitre.org →
T1078 Valid Accounts Stealth
Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion.
attack.mitre.org →
T1548 Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may circumvent mechanisms designed to control privilege elevation to gain higher-level permissions.
attack.mitre.org →
T1556 Modify Authentication Process Defense Impairment
Adversaries may modify authentication mechanisms and processes to access user credentials or enable otherwise unwarranted access to accounts.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-50948Same product: Ibm Storage Fusion Hci
CVE-2024-22315Same product: Ibm Storage Fusion Hci
CVE-2025-25023Same vendor: Ibm
CVE-2025-22839Shared CWE-1220
CVE-2024-21962Shared CWE-1220
CVE-2025-20628Shared CWE-1220
CVE-2025-31961Shared CWE-1220
CVE-2024-12619Shared CWE-1220
CVE-2025-8306Shared CWE-1220
CVE-2026-14615Shared CWE-1220

Affected Assets

ibm
storage fusion hci
2.5.2 — 2.8.0

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 4 hardening rules · 4 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V16.4.2
  • V8.4.2
  • V11.7.1
  • V13.2.4

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

AC-6 Least Privilege good match

Least privilege explicitly demands that only the minimum necessary accesses are granted, eliminating the broad permissions that define this weakness.

AC-24 Access Control Decisions good match

AC-24 requires access decisions to be applied precisely and unambiguously to every request, structurally blocking insufficiently granular policies.

AC-3 Access Enforcement good match

AC-3 requires enforcement of authorizations according to policy, directly compelling sufficiently granular rules so broad allowances cannot be introduced.

AC-4 Information Flow Enforcement partial match

AC-4 enforces approved information flows with explicit source/destination rules, preventing overly coarse access policies from being deployed.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.IR-01 mostly match
prevents

PR.IR-01's segmentation + zero-trust rules directly enforce minimum-necessary access at network boundaries, removing most instances of overly broad policy; CWE-1220 can still exist in application-layer or intra-segment controls that this single outcome does not address.

PR.PS-06 partial match
prevents

PR.PS-06's general SDLC practices can surface granularity issues during design/review (partial prevention) but do not specifically target access-control policy breadth, so they remove only part of CWE-1220's risk.

DE.AE-06 none match
degrades

CWE-1220 permits unauthorized access to sensitive assets but neither prevents nor impairs the delivery of adverse-event information to authorized recipients.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

A.8.3 Information access restriction mostly match
degrades

Directly requires information-access restriction at the level of individual assets and operations, addressing the granularity gap.

A.5.15 Access control partial match
prevents

Establishes the overarching access-control policy whose granularity directly determines whether the weakness exists.

A.5.18 Access rights partial match
prevents

Defines the assignment and review of access rights; insufficient granularity in those rights is the root of CWE-1220.

A.8.2 Privileged access rights partial match
prevents

Specifies management of privileged access rights, where overly broad privileges are a common manifestation of the weakness.

A.8.18 Use of privileged utility programs none match
none

Limits use of privileged utilities; overly coarse access rules can still allow unauthorized utility access.

Hardening callouts derived

Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).

Windows Server 2016 (1 rule)
  • V-225025 Local accounts with blank passwords must be restricted to prevent access from the network. prevents CWE-1220
Windows Server 2022 (1 rule)
  • V-254446 Windows Server 2022 must prevent local accounts with blank passwords from being used from the network. prevents CWE-1220

References