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CVE Record

CVE-2021-29795: IBM PowerVM Hypervisor FW860, FW930, FW940, and FW950 could allow a local user to create a specially crafte...

IBM PowerVM Hypervisor FW860, FW930, FW940, and FW950 could allow a local user to create a specially crafted sequence of hypervisor calls from a partition that could crash the system. IBM X-Force ID: 203557.

MediumCVSS 6Not KEV-listedUpdated
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Glexia's TakeAutomated analysismoderate

Security readout for executives and security teams

Plain-English summary

This is a denial-of-service issue in specific IBM PowerVM Hypervisor firmware streams. A highly privileged local user in a partition could send a crafted sequence of hypervisor calls that crashes the system. The business impact is outage risk, not data theft or tampering based on the supplied CVSS data.

Executive priority

Prioritize for IBM Power environments supporting critical workloads. The risk is service disruption requiring local high privileges, so urgency depends on business criticality and administrator trust boundaries.

Technical view

CVE-2021-29795 affects IBM PowerVM Hypervisor FW860, FW930, FW940, and FW950. The CVSS 3.0 vector is 6.0 with local attack vector, high privileges required, low complexity, changed scope, and high availability impact. Confidentiality and integrity impacts are listed as none.

Likely exposure

Exposure is limited to environments running the listed IBM PowerVM Hypervisor firmware streams, especially where privileged partition users or administrators can issue hypervisor calls.

Exploitation context

The bundle does not show CISA KEV listing or active exploitation. CVSS exploit maturity is listed as unproven, so treat exploitation status as unconfirmed.

Researcher notes

No CWE is provided in the bundle. The issue is availability-only by CVSS. Remediation level is listed as official fix, but the provided source text does not include exact fixed firmware levels.

Mitigation direction

  • Check IBM advisory 6490877 for affected and fixed firmware guidance.
  • Apply IBM-provided firmware updates or mitigations when confirmed for your platform.
  • Restrict privileged partition access to trusted administrators only.
  • Review administrative access paths into affected PowerVM partitions.
  • Track IBM X-Force entry 203557 for vendor updates.

Validation and detection

  • Inventory PowerVM Hypervisor firmware levels across IBM Power systems.
  • Identify systems running FW860, FW930, FW940, or FW950.
  • Confirm who has high-privilege access inside partitions.
  • Compare current firmware against IBM advisory guidance.
  • Review outage records for unexplained hypervisor or host crashes.
Prepared
Confidence
medium
Sources
4

Public sources used

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.

Potential ATT&CK relevance

Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context

These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.

ATT&CK lookup starting points

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CVE-2021-29795 mapping review

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Vulnerability profileCVE Program record
Severity
Medium
CVSS
6 (3.0)
Known Exploited
No
Published

Vector: CVSS:3.0/PR:H/S:C/AV:L/A:H/C:N/UI:N/AC:L/I:N/E:U/RC:C/RL:O

Official CVE source material

CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5

These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.

1CVSS vectors
0Timeline events
0ADP providers
3Source links

CVSS vector scores

1 official score

We collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.

ScoreVersionSeverityVectorExploitImpactSource
6CVSS 3.0MediumCVSS:3.0/PR:H/S:C/AV:L/A:H/C:N/UI:N/AC:L/I:N/E:U/RC:C/RL:O1.54Primary CVE score

Vulnerability scoring details

Base CVSS 3.0 score

6Medium
CVSS 3.0 vector shape for CVE-2021-29795Attack VectorAttack ComplexityPrivileges RequiredUser InteractionScopeConfidentiality ImpactIntegrity ImpactAvailability Impact

Vector: CVSS:3.0/PR:H/S:C/AV:L/A:H/C:N/UI:N/AC:L/I:N/E:U/RC:C/RL:O

Attack Vector
NetworkAdjacentLocalPhysical
Attack Complexity
LowHigh
Privileges Required
NoneLowHigh
User Interaction
NoneRequired
Scope
ChangedUnchanged
Confidentiality Impact
HighLowNone
Integrity Impact
HighLowNone
Availability Impact
HighLowNone

Source materials

Affected products

Products and packages named in the record

VendorProductVersion / packageStatus
IBMPowerVM HypervisorFW930, FW940, FW950, FW860Listed
Weakness

CWE details

No CWE listed

CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.