Description
ModSecurity is an open source, cross platform web application firewall (WAF) engine for Apache, IIS and Nginx. Prior to 3.0.16, the multipart/form-data request body parser in libmodsecurity silently removes embedded line breaks from non-file form-field values before exporting them to ARGS and ARGS_POST because src/request_body_processor/multipart.cc overwrites reserved bytes in m_reserve instead of appending the current buffer. This creates a parser differential between ModSecurity and backend applications that preserve line breaks in form fields, allowing rules that inspect ARGS or ARGS_POST to miss payloads whose dangerous syntax depends on a line break. This issue is fixed in version 3.0.16.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| owasp-modsecurity | ModSecurity | < 3.0.16 | — |
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 | 3.0.16-1 | — |
| Debian 13 | modsecurity | No fix yet | — |
| Debian 12 | modsecurity | No fix yet | — |
Ubuntu
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 26.10 | modsecurity | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 26.04 LTS | modsecurity | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 24.04 LTS | modsecurity | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 22.04 LTS | modsecurity | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 20.04 LTS | modsecurity | No fix yet | — |
Azure Linux
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Azure Linux 3 | mod_security | No fix yet | — |
Advisories 1
- WID-SEC-2026-2138 OWASP ModSecurity: Mehrere Schwachstellen ermöglichen Umgehen von Sicherheitsvorkehrungen BSI CERT-Bund (WID) · Jul 12, 2026