CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2018-9085 — Lenovo Flex System X240 M4 Firmware security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 4.9

A write protection lock bit was left unset after boot on an older generation of Lenovo and IBM System x servers, potentially allowing an attacker with administrator access to modify the subset of flash memory containing Intel Server Platform Services (SPS) and the system Flash Descriptors.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
4.9 (3.0)
Published
2018-11-16
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
operating-system
Weaknesses
CWE-276

Affected products

  • lenovo / flex_system_x240_m4_firmware
  • lenovo / flex_system_x440_m4_firmware
  • lenovo / system_x3750_m4_firmware
  • ibm / bladecenter_hs23_firmware
  • ibm / bladecenter_hs23e_firmware
  • ibm / flex_system_x220_m4_firmware

Showing 6 representative product identities from 29 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

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Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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