Description
Trustwave ModSecurity 3.x through 3.0.4 allows denial of service via a special request. NOTE: The discoverer reports "Trustwave has signaled they are disputing our claims." The CVE suggests that there is a security issue with how ModSecurity handles regular expressions that can result in a Denial of Service condition. The vendor does not consider this as a security issue because1) there is no default configuration issue here. An attacker would need to know that a rule using a potentially problematic regular expression was in place, 2) the attacker would need to know the basic nature of the regular expression itself to exploit any resource issues. It's well known that regular expression usage can be taxing on system resources regardless of the use case. It is up to the administrator to decide on when it is appropriate to trade resources for potential security benefit
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Debian
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 14 | modsecurity | 3.0.4-2 | — |
| Debian 13 | modsecurity | 3.0.4-2 | — |
| Debian 12 | modsecurity | 3.0.4-2 | — |
| Debian 10 | modsecurity | 3.0.3-1+deb10u2 | DSA-4765-1 |
SUSE
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| SUSE Package Hub 15 SP5 | modsecurity | 3.0.10-bp155.3.3.1 | openSUSE-SU-2023:0257-1 |
| SUSE Package Hub 15 SP4 | modsecurity | 3.0.10-bp154.2.3.1 | openSUSE-SU-2023:0269-1 |
openSUSE
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| openSUSE Leap 15.5 | modsecurity | 3.0.10-bp155.3.3.1 | openSUSE-SU-2023:0257-1 |
| openSUSE Leap 15.4 | modsecurity | 3.0.10-bp154.2.3.1 | openSUSE-SU-2023:0269-1 |
Advisories 4
- DSA-4765-1 modsecurity - security update Debian Security (DSA / DLA) · Mar 9, 2026
- openSUSE-SU-2023:0257-1 Security update for modsecurity SUSE / openSUSE Security Updates · Feb 4, 2026
- openSUSE-SU-2023:0269-1 Security update for modsecurity SUSE / openSUSE Security Updates · Feb 4, 2026
- WID-SEC-2023-1579 Trustwave ModSecurity: Schwachstelle ermöglicht Denial of Service BSI CERT-Bund (WID) · Jun 27, 2023