# CVE-2018-1786: Denial of service in Spectrum Protect

> Attackers can cause denial of service in IBM Spectrum Protect by triggering TCP/IP socket resource leakage in dsmc and dsmcad processes.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.0/A:L/AC:L/AV:N/C:N/I:N/PR:N/S:U/UI:N/E:U/RC:C/RL:O`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 12 Nov 2018
- **Updated:** 17 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-63h3-p626-m48h

## What is CVE-2018-1786?

CVE-2018-1786 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in IBM Spectrum Protect, published on 12 Nov 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

IBM Spectrum Protect 7.1 and 8.1 dsmc and dsmcad processes incorrectly accumulate TCP/IP sockets in a CLOSE_WAIT state. This can cause TCP/IP resource leakage and may result in a denial of service. IBM X-Force ID: 148871.

Weakness: CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-1786?

It affects 6 products.


Products: Ibm Spectrum Protect, Ibm Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments Data Protection for Hyper-V, Ibm Spectrum Protect Manager for Virtual Environments Data Protection for Vmware, Ibm Tivoli Storage Manager, Ibm Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments Data Protection for Hyper-V, Ibm Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments Data Protection for Vmware.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-1786?

No fix has been published for CVE-2018-1786 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2018-1786 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-1786 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in IBM Spectrum Protect

- [CVE-2020-4415](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-4415/): Memory corruption in Spectrum Protect (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2020-4210](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-4210/): Command injection in Spectrum Protect Plus (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2020-4211](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-4211/): Command injection in Spectrum Protect Plus (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2020-4212](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-4212/): Command injection in Spectrum Protect Plus (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2020-4213](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-4213/): Command injection in Spectrum Protect Plus (critical 9.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-1786 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-1786 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in IBM Spectrum Protect, published on 12 Nov 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-1786 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: IBM Spectrum Protect. 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-2018-1786/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-1786/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-1786
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-1786
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-1786

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-1786/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.