CVE-2026-107833

OWASP Coraza WAF: Unbounded recursion in JSON response body processor causes CPU exhaustion

Published Oct 9, 2026 CVSS 3.1 · 5.9 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
OWASP Coraza WAF is a golang modsecurity compatible web application firewall library. From 3.0.0 until 3.8.0, ProcessResponse in internal/bodyprocessors/json.go passes the ignoreJSONRecursionLimit value of -1 to readJSON, while the recursive guard only stops at zero. A network attacker who can cause an application protected by Coraza to return deeply nested JSON can make response-body processing perform quadratic work, consuming one CPU core for seconds per response within the default ResponseBodyLimit. Request JSON processing is not affected by this specific path because it uses the configured request recursion limit, and exploitation requires response-body inspection to be enabled. This issue is fixed in version 3.8.0.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-3c6w-j9xm-8h2h Coraza: Unbounded recursion in JSON response body processor causes CPU exhaustion
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Coraza
Coraza coraza
Vendors & Products Coraza
Coraza coraza
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'poc', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description OWASP Coraza WAF is a golang modsecurity compatible web application firewall library. From 3.0.0 until 3.8.0, ProcessResponse in internal/bodyprocessors/json.go passes the ignoreJSONRecursionLimit value of -1 to readJSON, while the recursive guard only stops at zero. A network attacker who can cause an application protected by Coraza to return deeply nested JSON can make response-body processing perform quadratic work, consuming one CPU core for seconds per response within the default ResponseBodyLimit. Request JSON processing is not affected by this specific path because it uses the configured request recursion limit, and exploitation requires response-body inspection to be enabled. This issue is fixed in version 3.8.0.
Title OWASP Coraza WAF: Unbounded recursion in JSON response body processor causes CPU exhaustion
Weaknesses CWE-674
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 5.9, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
GitHub_M
Published
Updated
Oct 9, 2026, 6:02 PM
Reserved
Oct 8, 2026, 10:34 PM
Status
Awaiting Analysis
Published
Oct 9, 2026, 6:17 PM
Modified
Oct 16, 2026, 5:16 PM