CVE-2025-48866ModSecurity has possible DoS vulnerability in sanitiseArg action
- 7.5HighCVSS base score
- 0.86%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 41% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- YesPublic exploitsa reference or SSVC says so
Description
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 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.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. CISA's SSVC rates its exploitation: a proof of concept is public.
Timeline
ID reserved
By GitHub_M
- 6 days later
· 6 days later
Published
- 7 days later
· 7 days later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub_MCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Analyzed | 3.1 | High7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.86% · top 41% of all CVEs (12 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: poc · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.5.
Affected products
owasp-modsecurity · ModSecurity
- affected < 2.9.10
References
References5
- https://github.com/owasp-modsecurity/ModSecurity/security/advisories/GHSA-f82j-8pp7-cw2w (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/owasp-modsecurity/ModSecurity/security/advisories/GHSA-859r-vvv8-rm8r (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/owasp-modsecurity/ModSecurity/commit/3a54ccea62d3f7151bb08cb78d60c5e90b53ca2e (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/owasp-modsecurity/ModSecurity/wiki/Reference-Manual-(v2.x)#sanitisearg (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISC
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/06/msg00009.html (opens in a new tab)
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2025-16670 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2025-48866)Record last updated .