# CVE-2018-1503: Denial of service in WebSphere MQ

> A remote authenticated attacker can cause a denial of service in IBM WebSphere MQ by sending malformed headers, stopping message transmission.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.3 (`CVSS:3.0/A:L/AC:L/AV:N/C:N/I:N/PR:L/S:U/UI:N/E:U/RC:C/RL:O`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 23 Jul 2018
- **Updated:** 16 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-c86m-jfmr-j98w

## What is CVE-2018-1503?

CVE-2018-1503 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Ibm Websphere Mq, published on 23 Jul 2018. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

IBM WebSphere MQ 7.5, 8.0, and 9.0 could allow a remotely authenticated attacker to to send invalid or malformed headers that could cause messages to no longer be transmitted via the affected channel. IBM X-Force ID: 141339.

Weakness: CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-1503?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Ibm Websphere Mq.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-1503?

No fix has been published for CVE-2018-1503 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2018-1503 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-1503 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Ibm Websphere Mq

- [CVE-2009-0896](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-0896/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2007-6044](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2007-6044/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2018-1998](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-1998/): Command injection in MQ (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2018-1792](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-1792/): Code injection in MQ (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2009-3160](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-3160/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 8.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-1503 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-1503 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Ibm Websphere Mq, published on 23 Jul 2018. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-1503 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Ibm Websphere Mq. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-1503/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-1503/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-1503
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-1503
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-1503

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-1503/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.