What is CVE-2016-8937?

CVE-2016-8937 is a critical-severity vulnerability in IBM Spectrum Protect, classified under Improper Authentication. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2017-10-05.

How severe is CVE-2016-8937?

Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.

Auth bypass in IBM Spectrum Protect

CVE-2016-8937

The IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (IBM Spectrum Protect 7.1 and 8.1) default authentication protocol is vulnerable to a brute force attack due to disclosing too much information during authentication. An attacker could gain user or administrative access to the TSM server. IBM X-Force ID: 118750.

Vulnerability class: Broken Authentication

Published 2017-10-05 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.8 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.019 (79.6th percentile), scored 2026-11-01.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 80th percentile — 79.6% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.019 · newest: 0.019 · change: 0.000

Affected products

IBM Spectrum Protect — versions 8.1, 7.1
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager — versions 6.1, 6.1.0, 6.1.1

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-287 — Improper Authentication

References

exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/118750 (VDB Entry, Vendor Advisory)
www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss (Patch, Vendor Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2016-8937?: CVE-2016-8937 is a critical-severity vulnerability in IBM Spectrum Protect, classified under Improper Authentication. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2017-10-05.
How severe is CVE-2016-8937?: Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.