dbcve.org
Business Automation WorkflowApplication · Ibm

CVE-2021-38883

MEDIUM · 5.4 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-12-17
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
See remediation →
58/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable Patch available

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 Business Automation Workflow 18.0, 19.0, 20,0 and 21.0 and IBM Business Process Manager 8.5 and 8.6 are vulnerable to cross-site scripting. This vulnerability allows users to embed arbitrary JavaScript code in the Web UI thus altering the intended functionality potentially leading to credentials disclosure within a trusted session. IBM X-Force ID: 209165.

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
How this class of weakness works · CWE-79

Untrusted input is placed into a web page without being neutralised, so an attacker's markup or script executes in another user's browser. That can hijack sessions, capture keystrokes, or silently perform actions as the victim. Fixing it properly means context-aware output encoding everywhere data meets HTML, backed by a content-security policy as a second line of defence.

General guidance for the cross-site scripting (xss) class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

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
Business Automation WorkflowApplication
Affected:= 18.0.0.0= 18.0.0.1= 18.0.0.2= 19.0.0.0= 19.0.0.1= 19.0.0.2= 19.0.0.3= 20.0.0.0= 20.0.0.1= 20.0.0.2= 21.0.0.0
Business Process ManagerApplication
Affected:= 8.5.0.0= 8.5.0.1= 8.5.0.2= 8.5.5.0= 8.5.6.0= 8.5.7.0= 8.6.0.0

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
Low
User interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

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

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.

dbcve · scoped
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Vendor patch www.ibm.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

IBM Business Automation Workflow 21.0 or IBM Business Process Manager 8.6

  1. 1. Review the IBM support page at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6527270 for the complete security bulletin and patch availability.
  2. 2. Identify your current installed version of IBM Business Automation Workflow or Business Process Manager.
  3. 3. Plan an upgrade to a fixed release. According to the official description, IBM Business Automation Workflow versions 20.0 and 21.0, and IBM Business Process Manager version 8.6 contain the fix for this vulnerability.
  4. 4. Schedule a maintenance window for the upgrade process.
  5. 5. Perform a full backup of your current environment before upgrading.
  6. 6. Follow IBM's official upgrade documentation for your specific product version.
  7. 7. After upgrading, verify that the X-Force ID 209165 is resolved and the vulnerability is no longer present.
  8. 8. Test critical business processes in the upgraded environment to ensure functionality is intact.
Caveat Review IBM upgrade documentation for potential compatibility considerations with custom integrations or third-party tools

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can apply and verify the patch for your build — typical engagement from $900. Get the patch applied

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-38883 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

Get it on GitHub Scan in the browser

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-2021-38883 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

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