Privilege escalation via overprivileged cron job
Published Aug 22, 2025 · Updated Feb 26, 2026
Privilege escalation in IBM QRadar SIEM 7.5 through 7.5.0 UP13 allows local users to obtain elevated privileges through a cron job. A misconfigured cron job executes with privileges beyond those required, exposing its privileged execution context to a lower-privileged account. Access to a low-privileged local account is required, and exploitation grants elevated access to resources available to the cron job.
Summary
What happened
Privilege escalation in IBM QRadar SIEM 7.5 through 7.5.0 UP13 allows local users to obtain elevated privileges through a cron job. A misconfigured cron job executes with privileges beyond those required, exposing its privileged execution context to a lower-privileged account. Access to a low-privileged local account is required, and exploitation grants elevated access to resources available to the cron job.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2025-33120
- Published
- Aug 22, 2025
- Updated
- Feb 26, 2026
- Vendor
- IBM
- Product
- QRadar SIEM
- Classifications
- CWE-250, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Aug 22, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Feb 26, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=7.5 <=7.5.0 Update Pack 13
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
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Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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