CVE-2025-48976
Published: 16 June 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-48976 is a high-severity Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) vulnerability in Apache Commons Fileupload. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, ranked in the top 20.0% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
Deeper analysis
Apache Commons FileUpload versions from 1.0 before 1.6 and from 2.0.0-M1 before 2.0.0-M4 contain a denial-of-service vulnerability caused by insufficient limits on resource allocation for multipart headers, tracked as CWE-770. The flaw received a CVSS 3.1 score of 7.5 with network attack vector, no authentication or user interaction required, and high impact on availability.
An unauthenticated remote attacker can send specially crafted multipart requests that trigger excessive memory or processing allocation during header parsing, leading to service degradation or complete outage on any application that uses the affected library for file-upload handling.
Advisories from the Apache project and downstream distributions such as Debian recommend immediate upgrade to version 1.6 or 2.0.0-M4; the referenced lists provide the corresponding package updates and configuration guidance for affected deployments.
The associated EPSS score has remained flat at 0.0128 with no material increase since disclosure.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-18407
Vulnerability details
Allocation of resources for multipart headers with insufficient limits enabled a DoS vulnerability in Apache Commons FileUpload. This issue affects Apache Commons FileUpload: from 1.0 before 1.6; from 2.0.0-M1 before 2.0.0-M4. Users are recommended to upgrade to versions 1.6 or…
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2.0.0-M4, which fix the issue.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
This control implements explicit throttling on session allocation, addressing the weakness of allocating resources without limits.
Plan testing exercises resource allocation limits and throttling during simulated failures, directly addressing weaknesses that allow unbounded resource use.
Contingency plan updates ensure recovery strategies address unbounded resource allocation, making it harder for attackers to exploit lack of throttling to cause prolonged outages.
Provides continuity when unbounded resource allocation at the primary site leads to exhaustion and downtime.
Alternate services allow operations to continue when primary allocation of resources lacks limits or throttling.
Explicit planning of security-related actions requires defining limits, windows, and resource allocations, making allocation without throttling far less likely.
Measures of performance include tracking allocation behavior and throttling effectiveness, reducing the window for resource exhaustion attacks.
Imposes an inactivity-based limit on network resource allocation, throttling the number of concurrently held connections.