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.
https://github.com/coreruleset/coreruleset/security/advisories/GHSA-f5qm-3h4p-8qhg
https://github.com/coreruleset/coreruleset/commit/e3b612a909532dcc8d056c01ac04b31117b71505
https://github.com/coreruleset/coreruleset/commit/6083611d00291e85ab7b587e96577deb53ed9cac
https://github.com/coreruleset/coreruleset/commit/4665b6d7a79a81aa8a802ef3c901d69491c009a4
Published: 2026-11-11
Updated: 2026-11-12
Base Score: 5
Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
Severity: Medium
Base Score: 7.5
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Severity: High
Base Score: 8.8
Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Severity: High
EPSS: 0.00594