CVE-2025-52891 | ModSecurity empty XML tag causes segmentation fault

ModSecurity is an open source, cross platform web application firewall (WAF) engine for Apache, IIS and Nginx. In versions 2.9.8 to before 2.9.11, an empty XML tag can cause a segmentation fault. If SecParseXmlIntoArgs is set to On or OnlyArgs, and the request type is application/xml, and at least one XML tag is empty (eg <foo></foo>), then a segmentation fault occurs. This issue has been patched in version 2.9.11. A workaround involves setting SecParseXmlIntoArgs to Off.

Published: 2025-07-02 Last update: 2026-04-15 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Deferred，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2025-52891 is rated Moderate Risk (42.4/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.24%). Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2025-52891

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-04-28 0.06% 0.24% +0.18%
2 2025-12-10 0.05% 0.06% +0.01%
3 2025-11-28 — 0.05% —

Full EPSS history (4 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-52891

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 2.8 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-52891

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-52891

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2025-52891 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (modsecurity-apache), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-52891
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-52891
suse high CVE-2025-52891 severity important: SUSE including 3 source package names (apache2-mod_security2, apache2-mod_security2-2.9.11-1.1, apache2-mod_security2-2.9.11-160000.3.2), 32 product×package rows across 32 product lines (SLES-LTSS-TERADATA 15 SP2, SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS, … (32 product lines)): Known Not Affected 30, Fixed 2. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-52891/
ubuntu medium CVE-2025-52891 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (modsecurity), 7 status rows across 7 suites (focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, upstream): needs-triage 5, ignored 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-52891

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-52891

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
No affected products in dataset.

References for CVE-2025-52891

cvelogic Threat Intelligence