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Security Bulletin: IBM Aspera Faspex is affected by open-source related vulnerabilities and unauthorized actions from authenticated users

Security Bulletin


Summary

IBM Aspera Faspex has addressed vulnerabilities related to denial-of-service, inefficient code execution under specific conditions, and unintended traffic routing. The 3rd party vulnerabilities are for very specific use cases that are not necessarily exposed through Faspex. Additionally, vulnerabilities related to client-side enforcement of server-side security mechanisms which could allow unauthorized actions from authenticated users have been also addressed. (CVE-2025-43857, CVE-2025-49007, CVE-2025-36039, CVE-2025-36040, CVE-2025-46727, CVE-2025-25186, CVE-2025-22870, CVE-2025-27789)

Vulnerability Details

CVEID:   CVE-2025-43857
DESCRIPTION:   Net::IMAP implements Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) client functionality in Ruby. Prior to versions 0.5.7, 0.4.20, 0.3.9, and 0.2.5, there is a possibility for denial of service by memory exhaustion when net-imap reads server responses. At any time while the client is connected, a malicious server can send can send a "literal" byte count, which is automatically read by the client's receiver thread. The response reader immediately allocates memory for the number of bytes indicated by the server response. This should not be an issue when securely connecting to trusted IMAP servers that are well-behaved. It can affect insecure connections and buggy, untrusted, or compromised servers (for example, connecting to a user supplied hostname). This issue has been patched in versions 0.5.7, 0.4.20, 0.3.9, and 0.2.5.
CWE:   CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
CVSS Source:   NVD
CVSS Base score:   7.5
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

CVEID:   CVE-2025-49007
DESCRIPTION:   Rack is a modular Ruby web server interface. Starting in version 3.1.0 and prior to version 3.1.16, there is a denial of service vulnerability in the Content-Disposition parsing component of Rack. This is very similar to the previous security issue CVE-2022-44571. Carefully crafted input can cause Content-Disposition header parsing in Rack to take an unexpected amount of time, possibly resulting in a denial of service attack vector. This header is used typically used in multipart parsing. Any applications that parse multipart posts using Rack (virtually all Rails applications) are impacted. Version 3.1.16 contains a patch for the vulnerability.
CWE:   CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
CVSS Source:   security-advisories@github.com
CVSS Base score:   6.6
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X)

CVEID:   CVE-2025-36039
DESCRIPTION:   IBM Aspera Faspex 5 could allow an authenticated user to perform unauthorized actions due to client-side enforcement of sever side security mechanisms, 
CWE:   CWE-602: Client-Side Enforcement of Server-Side Security
CVSS Source:   IBM
CVSS Base score:   6.5
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N)

CVEID:   CVE-2025-36040
DESCRIPTION:   IBM Aspera Faspex 5 could allow an authenticated user to perform unauthorized actions due to client-side enforcement of sever side security mechanisms, 
CWE:   CWE-613: Insufficient Session Expiration
CVSS Source:   IBM
CVSS Base score:   6.5
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

CVEID:   CVE-2025-46727
DESCRIPTION:   Rack is a modular Ruby web server interface. Prior to versions 2.2.14, 3.0.16, and 3.1.14, `Rack::QueryParser` parses query strings and `application/x-www-form-urlencoded` bodies into Ruby data structures without imposing any limit on the number of parameters, allowing attackers to send requests with extremely large numbers of parameters. The vulnerability arises because `Rack::QueryParser` iterates over each `&`-separated key-value pair and adds it to a Hash without enforcing an upper bound on the total number of parameters. This allows an attacker to send a single request containing hundreds of thousands (or more) of parameters, which consumes excessive memory and CPU during parsing. An attacker can trigger denial of service by sending specifically crafted HTTP requests, which can cause memory exhaustion or pin CPU resources, stalling or crashing the Rack server. This results in full service disruption until the affected worker is restarted. Versions 2.2.14, 3.0.16, and 3.1.14 fix the issue. Some other mitigations are available. One may use middleware to enforce a maximum query string size or parameter count, or employ a reverse proxy (such as Nginx) to limit request sizes and reject oversized query strings or bodies. Limiting request body sizes and query string lengths at the web server or CDN level is an effective mitigation.
CWE:   CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
CVSS Source:   NVD
CVSS Base score:   7.5
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

CVEID:   CVE-2025-25186
DESCRIPTION:   Net::IMAP implements Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) client functionality in Ruby. Starting in version 0.3.2 and prior to versions 0.3.8, 0.4.19, and 0.5.6, there is a possibility for denial of service by memory exhaustion in `net-imap`'s response parser. At any time while the client is connected, a malicious server can send can send highly compressed `uid-set` data which is automatically read by the client's receiver thread. The response parser uses `Range#to_a` to convert the `uid-set` data into arrays of integers, with no limitation on the expanded size of the ranges. Versions 0.3.8, 0.4.19, 0.5.6, and higher fix this issue. Additional details for proper configuration of fixed versions and backward compatibility are available in the GitHub Security Advisory.
CWE:   CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
CVSS Source:   security-advisories@github.com
CVSS Base score:   6.5
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

CVEID:   CVE-2025-22870
DESCRIPTION:   Matching of hosts against proxy patterns can improperly treat an IPv6 zone ID as a hostname component. For example, when the NO_PROXY environment variable is set to "*.example.com", a request to "[::1%25.example.com]:80` will incorrectly match and not be proxied.
CWE:   CWE-115: Misinterpretation of Input
CVSS Source:   CISA ADP
CVSS Base score:   4.4
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:L)

CVEID:   CVE-2025-27789
DESCRIPTION:   Babel is a compiler for writing next generation JavaScript. When using versions of Babel prior to 7.26.10 and 8.0.0-alpha.17 to compile regular expression named capturing groups, Babel will generate a polyfill for the `.replace` method that has quadratic complexity on some specific replacement pattern strings (i.e. the second argument passed to `.replace`). Generated code is vulnerable if all the following conditions are true: Using Babel to compile regular expression named capturing groups, using the `.replace` method on a regular expression that contains named capturing groups, and the code using untrusted strings as the second argument of `.replace`. This problem has been fixed in `@babel/helpers` and `@babel/runtime` 7.26.10 and 8.0.0-alpha.17. It's likely that individual users do not directly depend on `@babel/helpers`, and instead depend on `@babel/core` (which itself depends on `@babel/helpers`). Upgrading to `@babel/core` 7.26.10 is not required, but it guarantees use of a new enough `@babel/helpers` version. Note that just updating Babel dependencies is not enough; one will also need to re-compile the code. No known workarounds are available.
CWE:   CWE-1333: Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity
CVSS Source:   security-advisories@github.com
CVSS Base score:   6.2
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

Affected Products and Versions

Affected Product(s)Version(s)
Aspera Faspex 55.0.0 - 5.0.12.1

Remediation/Fixes

IBM strongly recommends addressing the vulnerabilities now by upgrading to Faspex 5.0.13 available from the link below.

 

ProductFixing VRMPlatformLink to Fix
IBM Aspera Faspex
5.0.13
Linuxclick here

 

Workarounds and Mitigations

None

Get Notified about Future Security Bulletins

References

Off

Acknowledgement

Change History

29 Jul 2025: Initial Publication

*The CVSS Environment Score is customer environment specific and will ultimately impact the Overall CVSS Score. Customers can evaluate the impact of this vulnerability in their environments by accessing the links in the Reference section of this Security Bulletin.

Disclaimer

According to the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is an "industry open standard designed to convey vulnerability severity and help to determine urgency and priority of response." IBM PROVIDES THE CVSS SCORES ""AS IS"" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. CUSTOMERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF ANY ACTUAL OR POTENTIAL SECURITY VULNERABILITY. In addition to other efforts to address potential vulnerabilities, IBM periodically updates the record of components contained in our product offerings. As part of that effort, if IBM identifies previously unidentified packages in a product/service inventory, we address relevant vulnerabilities regardless of CVE date. Inclusion of an older CVEID does not demonstrate that the referenced product has been used by IBM since that date, nor that IBM was aware of a vulnerability as of that date. We are making clients aware of relevant vulnerabilities as we become aware of them. "Affected Products and Versions" referenced in IBM Security Bulletins are intended to be only products and versions that are supported by IBM and have not passed their end-of-support or warranty date. Thus, failure to reference unsupported or extended-support products and versions in this Security Bulletin does not constitute a determination by IBM that they are unaffected by the vulnerability. Reference to one or more unsupported versions in this Security Bulletin shall not create an obligation for IBM to provide fixes for any unsupported or extended-support products or versions.

Document Location

Worldwide

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Document Information

Modified date:
29 July 2025

UID

ibm17241007