Open port 50000: IBM Tivoli

What this means

IBM Tivoli is an enterprise-grade system management software used for IT infrastructure monitoring, automation, and service management.

Open ports in IBM Tivoli products can expose services to unauthorised access, leading to security vulnerabilities such as Remote Code Execution (RCE), Privilege Escalation, Information Disclosure, or Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks.

Commonly exposed open ports in IBM Tivoli include:

Port 1527 (Derby Database)
Port 9080/9443 (WebSphere Application Server)
Port 1500/1501 (Tivoli Storage Manager)
Port 3660 (Tivoli Framework Endpoint Service)

Attackers can exploit improperly secured open ports to gain access to sensitive configurations, execute commands, or disrupt IBM Tivoli services.

Why this is a problem

If an IBM Tivoli service has an open port that is on an untrusted network, this can allow an attacker to connect to it and leverage known vulnerabilities to carry out the following attacks:

RCE attacks where attackers can execute arbitrary code on the affected system
data breach where unauthorised access to sensitive data stored in Tivoli system
DoS attacks where attackers may flood open ports, making Tivoli services unresponsive

How to check if the problem is there

Check open Tivoli ports

Run the following command to check if Tivoli ports are open.

Windows (Command Prompt):

netstat -an | find ":50000"

Linux/Mac (Terminal):

sudo netstat -tulnp | grep ":50000"

Nmap:

nmap -p- <IP_ADDRESS>

How to fix this

To mitigate attacks against Tivoli, an administrator can take the following steps to block access or reduce the attack surface.

Restrict network access

Restrict network access by carrying out the following:

remove any inbound firewall or port forwarding rules allowing port 50000
configure firewall rules to allow connections only from trusted IP addresses

Remove and harden affected services

Remove and harden affected services by carrying out the following:

disable or uninstall services if not required
segment the network to isolate the service
regularly patch any application or service using the port