Debian DSA-5023-1 : modsecurity-apache - security update

high Nessus Plugin ID 156186

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Synopsis

The remote Debian host is missing a security-related update.

Description

The remote Debian 10 / 11 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the dsa-5023 advisory.

- 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. (CVE-2021-42717)

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Solution

Upgrade the modsecurity-apache packages.

For the stable distribution (bullseye), this problem has been fixed in version 2.9.3-3+deb11u1.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 156186

File Name: debian_DSA-5023.nasl

Version: 1.3

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Debian Local Security Checks

Published: 12/19/2021

Updated: 11/22/2023

Supported Sensors: Agentless Assessment, Continuous Assessment, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 4.4

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5

Temporal Score: 3.9

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2021-42717

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.5

Temporal Score: 6.7

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:P/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:10.0, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:11.0, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:libapache2-mod-security2

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/Debian/release, Host/Debian/dpkg-l

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 12/18/2021

Vulnerability Publication Date: 12/7/2021

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2021-42717

Detections

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