Financial Transaction ManagerApplication · Ibm

CVE-2023-35892

CRITICAL · 9.1 CVSS v3.1 Published 2023-09-05
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
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 Financial Transaction Manager for SWIFT Services 3.2.4 is vulnerable to an XML External Entity Injection (XXE) attack when processing XML data. A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to expose sensitive information or consume memory resources. IBM X-Force ID: 258786.

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 Financial Transaction Manager for SWIFT Services 3.2.4 is vulnerable to XML External Entity Injection (XXE) when processing XML data. A remote attacker can exploit this by injecting malicious external entity references to expose sensitive information from the file system or internal network, or cause memory resource exhaustion through recursive entity expansion.

MitigationApply IBM's vendor patch for this vulnerability. As an interim control, disable external entity resolution and DTD processing in all XML parsers used by the application, and implement strict input validation for all XML data before parsing.

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
Financial Transaction ManagerApplication
Affected:= 3.2.4

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
High
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/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 the installed version of IBM Financial Transaction Manager for SWIFT Services
    Run the version check command or inspect the product's 'About' information. On Linux, this may be found via the installation directory's version manifest or using the IBM installation manager. On Windows, check the program's properties in Add/Remove Programs.
    Affected if The installed version is exactly 3.2.4.
  2. Locate XML parser configuration files used by the application
    Search the application installation directory for XML parser configuration files such as parser-config.xml, xerces-config.xml, or similar. Check the conf/ or config/ subdirectories for files that control XML processing behavior.
    Affected if XXE-prone parser configurations exist and are in use by the application.
  3. Check if external entity resolution is enabled in XML parsers
    Open the XML parser configuration files and look for settings such as 'externalEntityEnabled', 'allowExternalEntities', or 'resolveExternalEntities'. Verify whether these are set to 'true' or not explicitly disabled.
    Affected if External entity resolution is enabled (set to true or not explicitly disabled) in the parser configuration.
  4. Check if DTD processing is enabled in XML parsers
    Inspect the same XML parser configuration files for settings like 'allowDTD', 'processDTD', or 'enableDTD'. Determine if DTD processing is permitted.
    Affected if DTD processing is enabled in the XML parser configuration.

A user is affected if they have IBM Financial Transaction Manager for SWIFT Services version 3.2.4 installed AND their XML parser configuration allows external entity resolution or DTD processing.

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

Apply IBM's vendor patch for this vulnerability. As an interim control, disable external entity resolution and DTD processing in all XML parsers used by the application, and implement strict input validation for all XML data before parsing.

Fix this in Financial Transaction Manager Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation8.0 h
  • Implementation16.0 h
  • Testing12.0 h
  • Review / QA8.0 h
44.0 hours of engineering $7,720
Get help mitigating

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $12,352.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-35892 — 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-2023-35892 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