CVE-2020-4958
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 · uneditedIBM Security Identity Governance and Intelligence 5.2.6 does not perform any authentication for functionality that requires a provable user identity or consumes a significant amount of resources. IBM X-Force ID: 192209.
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 confidenceIBM Security Identity Governance and Intelligence 5.2.6 contains an authentication bypass vulnerability where certain functions that should require provable user identity or consume significant resources do not perform any authentication checks, allowing unauthenticated attackers to potentially access sensitive identity governance functionality or cause resource exhaustion.
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= 5.2.6CVSS 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
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Verify installed IBM Security Identity Governance and Intelligence versionLocate and inspect the product version information through the administrative console, installation directory, or version check command provided in IBM documentation. Common locations include the about page in the admin UI or the installation properties file.Affected if The installed version is exactly 5.2.6 (version equality match)
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Identify network accessibility of the management interfaceDetermine if the IBM Security Identity Governance and Intelligence web interface is exposed to untrusted networks by reviewing firewall rules, load balancer configurations, or network ACLs that govern access to the application ports.Affected if The management interface is accessible from untrusted network segments or the public internet
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Check for unauthenticated access to administrative functionsAttempt to access known administrative endpoints or API paths without providing credentials. Common test paths include the REST API endpoints, admin service URLs, or identity governance functions referenced in the product documentation.Affected if HTTP requests to sensitive endpoints return successful responses (200 OK) without requiring authentication tokens or session cookies
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Review application logs for authentication anomaliesExamine IBM Security Identity Governance and Intelligence system logs, access logs, or security audit logs for patterns of unauthenticated requests to protected resources or repeated requests from unknown sources.Affected if Logs show successful unauthenticated access to administrative or identity governance functions
The environment is affected if IBM Security Identity Governance and Intelligence version 5.2.6 is installed AND the management interface is accessible to untrusted networks, allowing unauthenticated access to sensitive functions.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataUpgrade to a patched version of IBM Security Identity Governance and Intelligence as specified in IBM's security advisory. As a compensating control, restrict network access to the affected system to trusted IP addresses only until the patch can be applied.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA3.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $5,888.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-4958 — 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 sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2020-4958 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- 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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