Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-16935

Race Condition in Ibm Aix 7.2.5 – 7.2.5.212

Race Condition
Published
20 August 2026
Modified
26 August 2026
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 7.8
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.00071 0.0th percentile
Risk Priority 54 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2026-16935 is a high-severity Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition (CWE-367) vulnerability in Ibm Aix. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Path Interception (T1034); ranked at the 0.0th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-25 (Reference Monitor) and AC-3 (Access Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

IBM AIX 7.2, and 7.3 and IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1 could allow a local attacker to gain elevated privileges due to a time-of-check to time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition.

CWE(s)
CWE-367

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1034 Path Interception Persistence
**This technique has been deprecated.
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 →
T1574 Hijack Execution Flow Stealth
Adversaries may execute their own malicious payloads by hijacking the way operating systems run programs.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-16819Same product: Ibm Aix
CVE-2026-16927Same product: Ibm Aix
CVE-2025-36244Same product: Ibm Aix
CVE-2026-16869Same product: Ibm Aix
CVE-2026-17171Same product: Ibm Aix
CVE-2026-16989Same product: Ibm Aix
CVE-2024-27273Same product: Ibm Aix
CVE-2026-16703Same product: Ibm Aix
CVE-2026-16850Same product: Ibm Aix
CVE-2026-16937Same product: Ibm Aix

Affected Assets

ibm
vios
4.1.0 — 4.1.0.50 · 4.1.1.0 — 4.1.1.30 · 4.1.2.0 — 4.1.2.20
ibm
aix
7.2.5 — 7.2.5.212 · 7.3.2 — 7.3.2.5 · 7.3.3 — 7.3.3.2

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

—

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V15.4.2
  • V17.2.6

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

AC-25 Reference Monitor good match

A reference monitor that is always invoked and analyzable structurally eliminates the non-atomic check-then-use pattern underlying TOCTOU.

AC-3 Access Enforcement partial match

Access enforcement that performs an atomic check-and-use decision directly stops the window in which a TOCTOU race can be exploited.

SC-39 Process Isolation partial match

Process isolation limits the blast radius of a successful TOCTOU exploitation but does not remove the race itself.

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.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly include coding standards and reviews that prevent TOCTOU race conditions.

References