Owasp Modsecurity Core Rule SetApplication · Owasp

CVE-2026-33691

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-04-02
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 3.3.9 / 4.25.0 or later.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

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 OWASP core rule set (CRS) is a set of generic attack detection rules for use with compatible web application firewalls. Prior to versions 3.3.9 and 4.25.0, a bypass was identified in OWASP CRS that allows uploading files with dangerous extensions (.php, .phar, .jsp, .jspx) by inserting whitespace padding in the filename (e.g. photo. php or shell.jsp ). The affected rules do not normalize whitespace before evaluating the file extension regex, so the dot-extension check fails to match. This issue has been patched in versions 3.3.9 and 4.25.0.

In the news

Third-party coverage
Trending covered by 1 outlet this week · latest 1mo ago

Surfaced from public web coverage — external links open in a new tab.

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

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

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
Owasp Modsecurity Core Rule SetApplication
Affected:< 3.3.9>= 4.0.0, < 4.25.0

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
High
Availability
None

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

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 · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 3.3.9 / 4.25.0 or later
Fixed in 3.3.94.25.0
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

OWASP CRS 3.3.9 (for 3.x branch) or 4.25.0 (for 4.x branch)

  1. Identify your current OWASP CRS version by checking the crs-setup.conf file or your deployment configuration
  2. Determine which major version branch you are using (3.x or 4.x)
  3. For CRS 3.x users: Upgrade to version 3.3.9 or later
  4. For CRS 4.x users: Upgrade to version 4.25.0 or later
  5. After upgrading, verify the rules are loaded correctly by checking ModSecurity error logs
  6. Test file upload functionality to confirm the whitespace bypass is now blocked (e.g.,尝试上传 'file.php ' or 'file.jsp ')
  7. Review any new rules or modifications that may cause false positives and adjust as needed
Caveat CRS upgrades may include rule modifications that could cause false positives; thorough testing of legitimate traffic is recommended after upgrading

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,950. Get the upgrade done

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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-2026-33691 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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