CVE-2023-38199
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedcoreruleset (aka OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set) through 3.3.4 does not detect multiple Content-Type request headers on some platforms. This might allow attackers to bypass a WAF with a crafted payload, aka "Content-Type confusion" between the WAF and the backend application. This occurs when the web application relies on only the last Content-Type header. Other platforms may reject the additional Content-Type header or merge conflicting headers, leading to detection as a malformed header.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisA resource is accessed as one type when it was actually allocated as another, so the code misreads memory layout — in interpreters and language runtimes this is frequently a direct path to code execution. It often arises from unchecked casts on attacker-influenced objects. The fix is strict type checks before casts and memory-safe access patterns.
General guidance for the type confusion class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data<= 3.3.4CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scopedCoreruleset 3.3.5 or later
- 1. Backup your current Coreruleset configuration and rules directory
- 2. Upgrade Coreruleset from version 3.3.4 to version 3.3.5 or later (latest stable release)
- 3. For package-based installations: use your system's package manager to install the updated coreruleset package
- 4. For manual installations: download the new release from https://github.com/coreruleset/coreruleset/releases and replace the existing rules files
- 5. Restart or reload the ModSecurity and web server (e.g., Apache, Nginx) to apply the new rules
- 6. Verify that requests with multiple Content-Type headers are now properly detected and blocked by the WAF
- 7. Test your application's legitimate traffic to ensure no false positives were introduced
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-38199 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2023-38199 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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