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High · 8.8 CVE-2026-61619 EUVD-2026-123632

OWASP CRS: ReDoS in shared unix-shell-evasion regex-assembly include (12 RCE rules) - PCRE2 backtracking-limit exhaustion causes detection bypass and CPU DoS

Published Nov 11, 2026 · Updated Nov 12, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

The OWASP core rule set (CRS) is a set of generic attack detection rules for use with compatible web application firewalls. Prior to versions 3.3.10, 4.25.1, and 4.28.0, regular-expression denial of service (ReDoS) affects a shared regex-assembly include used to build 12 Unix RCE detection rules in CRS v4, and the same ambiguous pattern was present in the manually-assembled regexes in 4 rules in CRS v3.3. With a single, unauthenticated, crafted request, the generated pattern drives PCRE2 past its backtracking limit. When PCRE2 exceeds that limit, the @rx operator returns an error rather than a match result, which results in detection bypass and CPU denial of service. This issue has been patched in versions 3.3.10, 4.25.1, and 4.28.0.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
coreruleset coreruleset < 3.3.10, < 4.25.1, < 4.28.0 —

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.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 14 modsecurity-crs No fix yet —
Debian 13 modsecurity-crs No fix yet —
Debian 12 modsecurity-crs No fix yet —

References