CVE-2016-5898 IBM CVE debrief

Who should care

IBM Jazz Reporting Service administrators, application owners, identity and access management teams, and security teams supporting environments where JRS is deployed—especially if reporting data is sensitive or the service is reachable beyond tightly controlled networks.

Technical summary

NVD describes the issue as a remote information disclosure in IBM Jazz Reporting Service caused by insufficient restriction of JSON serialization. The CVSS v3.0 vector (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N) indicates network reachability, low attack complexity, required low privileges, no user interaction, and limited confidentiality impact. NVD maps the weakness to CWE-254 and lists affected versions 5.0 through 6.0.2.

Defensive priority

Medium. Prioritize remediation if IBM Jazz Reporting Service is exposed to broad internal access, used to process sensitive reporting data, or not already constrained by strong authentication and network controls.

Recommended defensive actions

• Confirm whether your IBM Jazz Reporting Service deployment matches any affected NVD CPE versions (5.0, 5.0.1, 5.0.2, 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.0.2).
• Review the IBM PSIRT advisory and apply the vendor-recommended patch or mitigation referenced in the NVD record.
• Restrict access to JRS endpoints to only trusted users and networks, and minimize exposure of reporting interfaces that return JSON.
• Verify authorization controls on any JSON-producing or serialization-related endpoints so only intended users can retrieve report data.
• Review logs for direct requests to JRS endpoints and investigate unexpected access patterns or anomalous data retrieval.
• Document remediation status and confirm the fix in your asset inventory and vulnerability tracking system.

Evidence notes

The source corpus states that IBM Jazz Reporting Service could allow a remote attacker to obtain sensitive information because JSON serialization was not restricted. NVD lists the affected versions as JRS 5.0, 5.0.1, 5.0.2, 6.0, 6.0.1, and 6.0.2. The CVSS v3.0 vector is AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N, and the mapped weakness is CWE-254. References in the NVD record include an IBM PSIRT advisory and a SecurityFocus BID entry.

Official resources