CVE-2025-26386 Johnson Controls Inc. CVE debrief

Who should care

Organizations that use Johnson Controls iSTAR Configuration Utility (ICU) tool, especially engineering, facilities, and OT teams responsible for managing systems that host the utility. IT teams supporting the host operating system should also prioritize this advisory because the impact is on the machine running ICU.

Technical summary

The official advisory describes an availability-focused issue affecting the ICU tool. The published CVSS vector is CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H, indicating network-accessible conditions, low attack complexity, no privileges required, and user interaction required. The disclosed impact is that a successful exploitation could lead to failure in the host operating system. Johnson Controls' stated remediation is to update the ICU tool to version 6.9.8.

Defensive priority

High. The combination of a High CVSS score, low complexity, no privileges required, and host OS failure potential makes this a near-term patch priority for any environment using the ICU tool.

Recommended defensive actions

• Update Johnson Controls iSTAR Configuration Utility (ICU) tool to version 6.9.8 as recommended by the vendor.
• Review the Johnson Controls Product Security Advisory JCI-PSA-2025-08 v1 for any product-specific mitigation steps.
• Identify all machines running ICU tool and prioritize them for verification, patching, and post-update validation.
• Because the CVSS vector includes user interaction, reinforce user awareness around unexpected prompts or actions during ICU use until remediation is complete.
• Confirm backup and recovery readiness for hosts that depend on the ICU tool so operational disruption can be restored quickly if needed.

Evidence notes

Source evidence is limited to the CISA CSAF advisory and linked official references. The advisory text states: 'Under certain circumstances, a successful exploitation of this vulnerability could result in failure within the operating system of the machine hosting the ICU tool.' The advisory also lists the vendor remediation to update ICU tool to version 6.9.8 and provides CVSS 3.1 vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H. The supplied publishedAt/modifiedAt timestamps are both 2026-01-22T07:00:00.000Z and should be treated as the public disclosure timing in this corpus.

Official resources