Cognos ExpressApplication · Ibm

CVE-2010-0557

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v2.0 Published 2010-02-05
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
High EPSS Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
IBM Cognos Express 9.0 allows attackers to obtain unspecified access to the Tomcat Manager component, and cause a denial of service, by leveraging hardcoded credentials.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

IBM Cognos Express 9.0 contains hardcoded credentials that grant attackers unauthorized access to the Tomcat Manager component. This access can be exploited to cause denial of service conditions.

MitigationReplace hardcoded Tomcat Manager credentials with strong, unique passwords stored securely, and restrict Manager access to authorized IP addresses or networks.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Cognos ExpressApplication
Affected:= 9.0

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Partial
Integrity
Partial
Availability
Partial

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Verify IBM Cognos Express 9.0 installation
    Check for IBM Cognos Express 9.0 installation on the system by looking for its installation directory or checking installed programs list
    Affected if IBM Cognos Express version 9.0 is installed
  2. Locate Tomcat Manager configuration file
    Find the tomcat-users.xml or similar Tomcat configuration file within the Cognos Express installation directory structure, typically under a Tomcat conf folder
    Affected if Tomcat Manager configuration file exists in the Cognos Express installation
  3. Inspect for hardcoded credentials
    Open the Tomcat configuration file and look for user entries with roles such as manager-gui, manager-script, or manager-jmx. Check if credentials appear hardcoded or use default values
    Affected if Hardcoded or default credentials are present in Tomcat Manager user configuration
  4. Check Tomcat Manager access configuration
    Examine context.xml or server.xml files for Tomcat Manager application to see if access is restricted to localhost or limited IP addresses
    Affected if Tomcat Manager is accessible from non-localhost addresses without IP restrictions

A user is affected if IBM Cognos Express 9.0 is installed with Tomcat Manager configured using hardcoded or default credentials accessible from the network

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Replace hardcoded Tomcat Manager credentials with strong, unique passwords stored securely, and restrict Manager access to authorized IP addresses or networks.

Fix this in Cognos Express Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation6.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
16.0 hours of engineering $2,840
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Scan for this in your stack

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2010-0557 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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