# CVE-2018-1997: Denial of service in Business Automation Workflow

> An authenticated attacker can cause a denial of service by exhausting server-side memory via a specially crafted request in IBM Business Automation Workflow.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.3 (`CVSS:3.0/A:L/PR:L/I:N/AC:L/C:N/S:U/UI:N/AV:N/RL:O/E:U/RC:C`)
- **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:** 8 Apr 2019
- **Updated:** 16 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-xcgx-f24f-jj4r

## What is CVE-2018-1997?

CVE-2018-1997 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Ibm Business Automation Workflow, published on 8 Apr 2019. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

IBM Business Automation Workflow and Business Process Manager 18.0.0.0, 18.0.0.1, and 18.0.0.2 are vulnerable to a denial of service attack. An authenticated attacker might send a specially crafted request that exhausts server-side memory. IBM X-Force ID: 154774.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-1997?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Ibm Business Automation Workflow, Ibm Business Process Manager.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-1997?

No fix has been published for CVE-2018-1997 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2018-1997 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-1997 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Ibm Business Automation Workflow

- [CVE-2022-43864](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-43864/): IBM Business Automation Workflow information disclosure (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2025-13096](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-13096/): XML eXternal Entity injection (XXE) vulnerability affect IBM Business Automation Workflow - (high 7.1)
- [CVE-2019-4424](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-4424/): XML external entity in Business Automation Workflow (high 7.1)
- [CVE-2021-38893](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-38893/): Cross-site scripting in Business Process Manager Standard (medium 6.4)
- [CVE-2021-29834](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-29834/): Cross-site scripting in Business Automation Workflow (medium 6.4)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-1997 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-1997 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Ibm Business Automation Workflow, published on 8 Apr 2019. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-1997 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Ibm Business Automation Workflow. 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-2018-1997/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-1997/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-1997
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-1997
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-1997

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-1997/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.