CVE-2025-14915
Published: 25 March 2026
Summary
CVE-2025-14915 is a medium-severity Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor (CWE-200) vulnerability in Ibm Websphere Application Server. Its CVSS base score is 6.5 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 2.1th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-2 (Flaw Remediation) and AC-3 (Access Enforcement).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Directly remediates the specific privilege escalation flaw in IBM WebSphere Liberty through timely identification, reporting, and patching as advised by IBM.
Enforces least privilege for users, limiting the initial privileges available for escalation and reducing the impact of the vulnerability requiring high privileges (PR:H).
Strengthens enforcement of access control policies in the application server to mitigate unauthorized privilege escalation beyond approved authorizations.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Explicit privilege escalation vulnerability allowing an authenticated high-privileged user to obtain additional access and sensitive information on the server.
NVD Description
IBM WebSphere Application Server - Liberty 17.0.0.3 through 26.0.0.3 IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty is affected by privilege escalation. A privileged user could gain additional access to the application server.
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2025-14915 is a privilege escalation vulnerability affecting IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty versions 17.0.0.3 through 26.0.0.3. The issue allows a privileged user to gain additional access to the application server, as classified under CWE-200 (Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor) with NVD-CWE-noinfo. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 6.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N), indicating medium severity with high impacts to confidentiality and integrity over the network.
Exploitation requires high privileges (PR:H), meaning an attacker must already possess a privileged account on the affected system. With low attack complexity and no user interaction needed, such a user can remotely escalate their access, potentially exposing sensitive information and modifying application server resources without impacting availability.
IBM has published details and mitigation guidance in its security advisory at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7267345. Security practitioners should consult this reference for patch availability and recommended remediation steps for the vulnerable Liberty versions.
Details
- CWE(s)