Classic Buffer OverflowWeakness · CWE-120

CVE-2025-41706

MEDIUM · 5.3 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-10-14
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
62/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

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 · unedited
The webserver is vulnerable to a denial of service condition. An unauthenticated remote attacker can craft a special GET request with an over-long content-length to trigger the issue without affecting the core functionality.

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 analysis · moderate confidence

A denial of service vulnerability exists in the webserver where an unauthenticated attacker can send a specially crafted GET request containing an excessively long Content-Length header value. This causes the server to allocate excess resources or enter an error state while processing the malformed request, resulting in service disruption.

MitigationImplement input validation to limit and sanitize Content-Length header values, and consider deploying rate limiting or request size restrictions at the webserver or network perimeter to mitigate rapid repeated attacks.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

CVSS 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
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify webserver software and version
    Run 'httpd -v' for Apache, 'nginx -v' for Nginx, or check the server response header (Server: ) via 'curl -I <target>' to determine the exact version installed
    Affected if The installed version falls within any affected version ranges for CVE-2025-41706 (compare your version to vendor advisories)
  2. Verify unauthenticated HTTP access is permitted
    Send a basic GET request to the server without credentials using 'curl -v http://<target>/' and confirm a response is received
    Affected if The server responds to unauthenticated requests on HTTP/HTTPS ports (the vulnerability requires unauthenticated access)
  3. Inspect Content-Length header handling configuration
    Check the webserver configuration file (httpd.conf, nginx.conf) for any directives that limit or validate the Content-Length header value, such as 'LimitRequestFieldSize', 'client_max_body_size', or custom header validation rules
    Affected if No Content-Length validation or header size limits are configured (server will accept arbitrarily long header values)
  4. Check for request size or rate limiting
    Review the configuration for rate limiting modules (mod_rate_limit for Apache, limit_req for Nginx) or request size restrictions using 'grep -i limit \path\to\config'
    Affected if No rate limiting or request size restrictions are in place to block oversized Content-Length headers
  5. Test for anomalous header processing
    Send a GET request with an excessively long Content-Length header: 'curl -v -H "Content-Length: 99999999999999999999" http://<target>/' and observe server response behavior
    Affected if The server accepts the request without rejecting it or closing the connection, indicating potential vulnerability

You are affected if your webserver accepts unauthenticated requests and lacks Content-Length header validation or size limits, allowing an attacker to trigger resource exhaustion via oversized header values.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Implement input validation to limit and sanitize Content-Length header values, and consider deploying rate limiting or request size restrictions at the webserver or network perimeter to mitigate rapid repeated attacks.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
10.0 hours of engineering $1,750
Get help mitigating

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,800.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-41706 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-41706 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data