CVE-2025-48866
Owasp Modsecurity ≤ 2.9.10
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2025-48866 is a high-severity Excessive Platform Resource Consumption within a Loop (CWE-1050) vulnerability in Owasp Modsecurity. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); ranked in the top 47% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SC-6 (Resource Availability) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
ModSecurity is an open source web application firewall engine supporting Apache, IIS, and Nginx. Versions prior to 2.9.10 contain a denial-of-service vulnerability in the sanitiseArg and sanitizeArg actions (the latter an alias), which can be abused to add an excessive number of arguments and exhaust resources. The flaw is comparable to the earlier issue tracked as GHSA-859r-vvv8-rm8r/CVE-2025-47947 and carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 7.5 reflecting high availability impact with network attack vector and no required credentials.
An unauthenticated remote attacker can trigger the condition simply by sending HTTP requests that match WAF rules employing the affected actions, resulting in service disruption without any impact on confidentiality or integrity. Exploitation requires the presence of such rules; otherwise the vulnerable code path is not reached.
The project addressed the issue in release 2.9.10 via commit 3a54ccea. Official guidance recommends upgrading or, as a workaround, removing any rules that reference sanitiseArg or sanitizeArg. Related advisories and distribution notices (including Debian LTS) reiterate the same upgrade and avoidance steps.
EPSS remains flat at 0.0107 with no material increase after disclosure.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-16670
Vulnerability Data
ModSecurity is an open source, cross platform web application firewall (WAF) engine for Apache, IIS and Nginx. Versions prior to 2.9.10 contain a denial of service vulnerability similar to GHSA-859r-vvv8-rm8r/CVE-2025-47947. The `sanitiseArg` (and `sanitizeArg` - this is the same action…
more
but an alias) is vulnerable to adding an excessive number of arguments, thereby leading to denial of service. Version 2.9.10 fixes the issue. As a workaround, avoid using rules that contain the `sanitiseArg` (or `sanitizeArg`) action.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 2 hardening rules · 2 OS baselines
V2.4.1V7.6.2V15.4.3V15.4.4
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
SA-11 developer testing can discover loops that consume platform resources before deployment.
SC-6 directly protects resource availability by enforcing allocation limits that bound consumption from faulty loops.
AC-10 caps concurrent sessions, reducing blast radius when a loop consumes session or connection resources.
SC-5 limits effects of DoS events that can result from unbounded resource consumption inside loops.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Runtime monitoring can detect excessive resource use from loops as an adverse event.
Capacity monitoring and resource management directly limit impact of runaway consumption.
Secure SDLC practices can prevent introduction of unbounded loops during development.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Monitoring can alert on resource abuse but does not eliminate the coding flaw.
Security testing can discover the defect but does not remove it from production code.
Redundancy can absorb some resource spikes but does not prevent the loop defect.
Logging may detect excessive consumption but does not stop the loop.
Secure SDLC processes can catch the weakness during reviews but do not inherently prevent it.
Secure coding standards explicitly forbid resource-consuming loops.
Hardening callouts derived
Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).
Oracle Linux 9 (1 rule)
- V-271709 OL 9 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic terminate after becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-1050
RHEL 9 (1 rule)
- V-257995 RHEL 9 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic terminate after becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-1050