Security Guardium Big Data IntelligenceApplication · Ibm

CVE-2019-4338

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2019-08-20
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
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 Security Guardium Big Data Intelligence 4.0 (SonarG) does not properly restrict the size or amount of resources that are requested or influenced by an actor. This weakness can be used to consume more resources than intended. IBM X-Force ID: 161417.

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 · moderate confidence

IBM Security Guardium Big Data Intelligence 4.0 (SonarG) lacks proper resource restriction controls, allowing an attacker to overwhelm the system by requesting or influencing more resources than intended. This is a classic resource exhaustion vulnerability that can lead to denial of service.

MitigationImplement rate limiting, request size limits, and resource quotas to restrict the amount of resources any single actor can consume within a given time period.

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
Security Guardium Big Data IntelligenceApplication
Affected:= 4.0

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
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

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. Identify installed product version
    Locate the IBM Security Guardium Big Data Intelligence installation and determine the exact version number. Check installation directories, version files, or administrative interfaces for the SonarG component version information.
    Affected if The installed version is confirmed to be exactly 4.0 (version 4.0) of IBM Security Guardium Big Data Intelligence (SonarG)
  2. Verify rate limiting configuration
    Examine the application's configuration files and administrative settings to determine if rate limiting controls are implemented. Look for throttling, request limits, or rate restriction settings in the system configuration.
    Affected if Rate limiting is not configured or is absent from the system configuration
  3. Check resource quota settings
    Review system resource quota configurations to see if limits are enforced on resource consumption per user, session, or request. Inspect quota-related configuration files or administrative panels.
    Affected if Resource quotas are not defined or are not enforced
  4. Review request size limits
    Inspect configuration settings that control maximum request sizes, payload limits, or input validation boundaries. Check if limits on incoming requests are properly configured.
    Affected if Request size limits are not configured or are set to unlimited

A user is affected if they are running IBM Security Guardium Big Data Intelligence version 4.0 and lack rate limiting, resource quotas, and request size limit controls in their configuration.

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

Implement rate limiting, request size limits, and resource quotas to restrict the amount of resources any single actor can consume within a given time period.

Fix this in Security Guardium Big Data Intelligence Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation16.0 h
  • Testing8.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
32.0 hours of engineering $5,600
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Scan for this in your stack

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dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2019-4338 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

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-2019-4338 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data