The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Monday gave federal civilian agencies until Thursday to fix critical flaws that attackers are exploiting in three business products: GPUStack, which runs AI models on clusters of graphics processors; IBM's Aspera Faspex file-transfer service; and the FreeSwitch telephone platform. CISA's alert adds them, with a fourth flaw, to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Each product sits close to valuable assets, from cloud keys to partner files and phone calls, and each flaw scores 9.8 out of 10 for severity.
What Happened
GPUStack describes itself on GitHub as a graphics processing unit (GPU) cluster manager for AI model serving. Its advisory says versions before 2.2.0 can wrongly treat outside requests as coming from the built-in administrator. The advisory, published July 31, says the flaw has been exploited in the wild against a GPUStack 2.1.1 deployment. CISA's catalog says attackers could change users and models, create lasting administrator keys, expose worker and cloud-provider secrets and run code.
Aspera Faspex is IBM's file-exchange service. In a bulletin published Nov. 7, IBM said a logged-in Faspex 5 user can craft a message that bypasses authorization checks and gains full administrator rights. Version 5.0.19 PL1 fixes it, IBM said; the bulletin offers no workaround and does not mention attacks.
FreeSwitch, maintained by SignalWire, is software that replaces hardware telephone switches. SignalWire's Oct. 28 advisory says a single text message sent over SIP, the protocol that sets up internet calls, can choose which internal command the server runs, exposing settings and credentials, taking control of calls and running commands. It said exploitation "has been observed in the wild." Version 1.11.3 fixes the flaw; turning off inbound chat on profiles that do not need it is the fullest stopgap.
The fourth entry is the OpenSSH "SSHole" login bypass, which The Primary Wire reported Monday was under attack, days after the fix shipped.
Why It Matters
AI model servers concentrate costly computing power, proprietary models and the keys to cloud accounts, so administrator control of one can reach well beyond the server itself. File-transfer hubs carry sensitive documents exchanged with partners, and phone platforms carry calls and stored credentials.
CISA cited Binding Operational Directive 26-04, "Prioritizing Security Updates Based on Risk," under which agencies must apply fixes, follow CISA's forensic triage guidance to check for compromise, or stop using a product with no fix. The directive binds only federal civilian agencies, but CISA urges all organizations to prioritize catalog flaws. Boards should ask whether any of the three products runs in their environment, including inside AI or contact-center projects outside central IT.
What to Watch
The Nov. 12 deadline, and whether IBM, GPUStack, SignalWire or incident responders describe the attacks. CISA lists ransomware use as unknown for all three and has not said who is behind the exploitation.
