CVE-2021-42717

ModSecurity 3.x through 3.0.5 mishandles excessively nested JSON objects. Crafted JSON objects with nesting tens-of-thousands deep could result in the web server being unable to service legitimate requests. Even a moderately large (e.g., 300KB) HTTP request can occupy one of the limited NGINX worker processes for minutes and consume almost all of the available CPU on the machine. Modsecurity 2 is similarly vulnerable: the affected versions include 2.8.0 through 2.9.4.

Summary:

ModSecurity 3.x through 3.0.5 mishandles excessively nested JSON objects. Crafted JSON objects with nesting tens-of-thousands deep could result in the web server being unable to service legitimate requests. Even a moderately large (e.g., 300KB) HTTP request can occupy one of the limited NGINX worker processes for minutes and consume almost all of the available CPU on the machine. Modsecurity 2 is similarly vulnerable: the affected versions include 2.8.0 through 2.9.4.

Reference Links(if available):

  • https://www.trustwave.com/en-us/resources/blogs/spiderlabs-blog/modsecurity-dos-vulnerability-in-json-parsing-cve-2021-42717/
  • https://www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-5023
  • CVSS Score (if available)

    v2: / MEDIUMAV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

    v3: / HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

    Links to Exploits(if available)