WAF bypass via duplicate Content-Encoding headers
Published Mar 28, 2024 · Updated Mar 13, 2025
WAF rule bypass in Imperva SecureSphere WAF 14.7.0.40 allows remote attackers to pass malicious POST data to protected applications. Duplicate Content-Encoding headers place an arbitrary encoding before gzip or deflate, causing POST-body inspection rules to miss content that the backend still processes. Exploitation requires traffic to traverse an affected on-premises WAF and a protected application susceptible to the concealed payload; the bypass alone does not compromise the appliance.
Summary
What happened
WAF rule bypass in Imperva SecureSphere WAF 14.7.0.40 allows remote attackers to pass malicious POST data to protected applications. Duplicate Content-Encoding headers place an arbitrary encoding before gzip or deflate, causing POST-body inspection rules to miss content that the backend still processes. Exploitation requires traffic to traverse an affected on-premises WAF and a protected application susceptible to the concealed payload; the bypass alone does not compromise the appliance.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-50969
- Published
- Mar 28, 2024
- Updated
- Mar 13, 2025
- Vendor
- Imperva
- Product
- SecureSphere Web Application Firewall
- Classifications
- T1190
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Mar 28, 2024CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Mar 13, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=14.7.0.40
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- Duplicate Content-Encoding POST bypass demonstrationfunctional · demonstrated
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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