Summary
CVE-2026-18074 is an improper authentication and missing authorization vulnerability (CWE-287) affecting IBM Financial Transaction Manager (FTM) for RedHat OpenShift. The flaw could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to perform unauthorized actions against the application. IBM rates the issue High severity with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.2.
Technical details
- Root cause: The affected FTM builds implement improper authentication checks combined with missing authorization enforcement, allowing certain actions to be performed without valid credentials or proper permission validation.
- Trigger conditions: No authentication or user interaction is required; an attacker only needs network access to a vulnerable FTM instance to attempt exploitation.
- Attack vector: Network (AV:N), low attack complexity (AC:L), no privileges required (PR:N), no user interaction (UI:N).
- Impact: High integrity impact and low availability impact — a successful attacker can perform unauthorized actions within the application; confidentiality is not directly affected per the scoring, but unauthorized modification of transaction-processing behavior carries significant business risk given FTM’s role in financial transaction handling.
Affected software
- IBM Financial Transaction Manager (FTM) for RedHat OpenShift versions 4.0.6.0 through 4.0.10.0, including all Interim Fix (iFix) releases up to 4.0.10.0 Interim Fix 064
Severity
- CVSS v3.1 Base Score: 8.2 (High)
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:L
Mitigation and recommended actions
- Immediate: Upgrade IBM Financial Transaction Manager (FTM) for RedHat OpenShift to version 4.0.11.0 or later, which contains the fix for this vulnerability.
- If no patch can be applied immediately: IBM’s advisory states that no workarounds or mitigations are available for this vulnerability — upgrading to the fixed version is the only remediation path. Organizations unable to patch immediately should restrict network access to FTM instances to trusted management networks and monitor for anomalous unauthorized transaction or configuration actions until the upgrade can be completed.

