Vulnerability-Lookup

Vulnerability from bitnami_vulndb

Published

2025-07-04 07:42

Modified

2025-07-04 08:10

Summary

ModSecurity empty XML tag causes segmentation fault

Details

ModSecurity is an open source, cross platform web application firewall (WAF) engine for Apache, IIS and Nginx. In versions 2.9.8 to before 2.9.11, an empty XML tag can cause a segmentation fault. If SecParseXmlIntoArgs is set to On or OnlyArgs, and the request type is application/xml, and at least one XML tag is empty (eg ), then a segmentation fault occurs. This issue has been patched in version 2.9.11. A workaround involves setting SecParseXmlIntoArgs to Off.

JSON

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{
  "affected": [
    {
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Bitnami",
        "name": "modsecurity2",
        "purl": "pkg:bitnami/modsecurity2"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "2.9.8"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "2.9.11"
            }
          ],
          "type": "SEMVER"
        }
      ],
      "severity": [
        {
          "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
          "type": "CVSS_V3"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [
    "CVE-2025-52891"
  ],
  "database_specific": {
    "cpes": [
      "cpe:2.3:a:trustwave:modsecurity:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
    ],
    "severity": "Medium"
  },
  "details": "ModSecurity is an open source, cross platform web application firewall (WAF) engine for Apache, IIS and Nginx. In versions 2.9.8 to before 2.9.11, an empty XML tag can cause a segmentation fault. If SecParseXmlIntoArgs is set to On or OnlyArgs, and the request type is application/xml, and at least one XML tag is empty (eg \u003cfoo\u003e\u003c/foo\u003e), then a segmentation fault occurs. This issue has been patched in version 2.9.11. A workaround involves setting SecParseXmlIntoArgs to Off.",
  "id": "BIT-modsecurity2-2025-52891",
  "modified": "2025-07-04T08:10:20.098Z",
  "published": "2025-07-04T07:42:25.055Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/owasp-modsecurity/ModSecurity/commit/ecd7b9736836eee391d25f35d5bd06a3ce35a45d"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/owasp-modsecurity/ModSecurity/security/advisories/GHSA-gw9c-4wfm-vj3x"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-52891"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.6.2",
  "summary": "ModSecurity empty XML tag causes segmentation fault"
}

CVE-2025-52891 (GCVE-0-2025-52891)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2025-07-02 15:03 – Updated: 2025-07-02 15:27

Title

ModSecurity empty XML tag causes segmentation fault

Summary

ModSecurity is an open source, cross platform web application firewall (WAF) engine for Apache, IIS and Nginx. In versions 2.9.8 to before 2.9.11, an empty XML tag can cause a segmentation fault. If SecParseXmlIntoArgs is set to On or OnlyArgs, and the request type is application/xml, and at least one XML tag is empty (eg <foo></foo>), then a segmentation fault occurs. This issue has been patched in version 2.9.11. A workaround involves setting SecParseXmlIntoArgs to Off.

Severity

6.5 (Medium)


                        
                          CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

SSVC

Exploitation: none Automatable: no Technical Impact: partial

CISA Coordinator · CISA-ADP (v2.0.3)

Decision recorded 2025-07-02 15:24 UTC

CWE

CWE-20 - Improper Input Validation

Assigner

GitHub_M mitre root

References

2 references

URL	Tags
https://github.com/owasp-modsecurity/ModSecurity/…	x_refsource_CONFIRM
https://github.com/owasp-modsecurity/ModSecurity/…	x_refsource_MISC

Impacted products

1 product

Vendor	Product	Version
owasp-modsecurity	ModSecurity	Affected: >= 2.9.8, < 2.9.11

Show details on NVD website

JSON

To clipboard

{
  "containers": {
    "adp": [
      {
        "metrics": [
          {
            "other": {
              "content": {
                "id": "CVE-2025-52891",
                "options": [
                  {
                    "Exploitation": "none"
                  },
                  {
                    "Automatable": "no"
                  },
                  {
                    "Technical Impact": "partial"
                  }
                ],
                "role": "CISA Coordinator",
                "timestamp": "2025-07-02T15:24:24.644464Z",
                "version": "2.0.3"
              },
              "type": "ssvc"
            }
          }
        ],
        "providerMetadata": {
          "dateUpdated": "2025-07-02T15:27:34.504Z",
          "orgId": "134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0",
          "shortName": "CISA-ADP"
        },
        "title": "CISA ADP Vulnrichment"
      }
    ],
    "cna": {
      "affected": [
        {
          "product": "ModSecurity",
          "vendor": "owasp-modsecurity",
          "versions": [
            {
              "status": "affected",
              "version": "\u003e= 2.9.8, \u003c 2.9.11"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "descriptions": [
        {
          "lang": "en",
          "value": "ModSecurity is an open source, cross platform web application firewall (WAF) engine for Apache, IIS and Nginx. In versions 2.9.8 to before 2.9.11, an empty XML tag can cause a segmentation fault. If SecParseXmlIntoArgs is set to On or OnlyArgs, and the request type is application/xml, and at least one XML tag is empty (eg \u003cfoo\u003e\u003c/foo\u003e), then a segmentation fault occurs. This issue has been patched in version 2.9.11. A workaround involves setting SecParseXmlIntoArgs to Off."
        }
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "cvssV3_1": {
            "attackComplexity": "LOW",
            "attackVector": "NETWORK",
            "availabilityImpact": "HIGH",
            "baseScore": 6.5,
            "baseSeverity": "MEDIUM",
            "confidentialityImpact": "NONE",
            "integrityImpact": "NONE",
            "privilegesRequired": "NONE",
            "scope": "UNCHANGED",
            "userInteraction": "REQUIRED",
            "vectorString": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
            "version": "3.1"
          }
        }
      ],
      "problemTypes": [
        {
          "descriptions": [
            {
              "cweId": "CWE-20",
              "description": "CWE-20: Improper Input Validation",
              "lang": "en",
              "type": "CWE"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "providerMetadata": {
        "dateUpdated": "2025-07-02T15:05:00.938Z",
        "orgId": "a0819718-46f1-4df5-94e2-005712e83aaa",
        "shortName": "GitHub_M"
      },
      "references": [
        {
          "name": "https://github.com/owasp-modsecurity/ModSecurity/security/advisories/GHSA-gw9c-4wfm-vj3x",
          "tags": [
            "x_refsource_CONFIRM"
          ],
          "url": "https://github.com/owasp-modsecurity/ModSecurity/security/advisories/GHSA-gw9c-4wfm-vj3x"
        },
        {
          "name": "https://github.com/owasp-modsecurity/ModSecurity/commit/ecd7b9736836eee391d25f35d5bd06a3ce35a45d",
          "tags": [
            "x_refsource_MISC"
          ],
          "url": "https://github.com/owasp-modsecurity/ModSecurity/commit/ecd7b9736836eee391d25f35d5bd06a3ce35a45d"
        }
      ],
      "source": {
        "advisory": "GHSA-gw9c-4wfm-vj3x",
        "discovery": "UNKNOWN"
      },
      "title": "ModSecurity empty XML tag causes segmentation fault"
    }
  },
  "cveMetadata": {
    "assignerOrgId": "a0819718-46f1-4df5-94e2-005712e83aaa",
    "assignerShortName": "GitHub_M",
    "cveId": "CVE-2025-52891",
    "datePublished": "2025-07-02T15:03:34.068Z",
    "dateReserved": "2025-06-20T17:42:25.709Z",
    "dateUpdated": "2025-07-02T15:27:34.504Z",
    "state": "PUBLISHED"
  },
  "dataType": "CVE_RECORD",
  "dataVersion": "5.1"
}

Sightings

Author	Source	Type	Date	Other

Nomenclature

Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.

Detection rules are retrieved from Rulezet.

The MITRE ATT&CK techniques below are AI-generated suggestions, inferred from the description of the vulnerability by the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-classification-roberta-base model, served locally by ML-Gateway. They have not been verified by an analyst and are provided for guidance only.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
Browse all ATT&CK techniques and the vulnerabilities related to each.

Related by attack behaviour

Vulnerabilities whose description is nearest to this one in the vector space of the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-biencoder model. This is a similarity search over the bi-encoder space (plain cosine), not a classification, and it has no measured accuracy.