Service interruption via unbounded multipart header retention
Published Jun 16, 2025 · Updated Nov 3, 2025
Resource exhaustion in affected Apache Tomcat releases allows remote attackers to interrupt service via crafted multipart requests. Request.parseParts used the request-parameter limit as the multipart-part limit while retaining every part's headers, so header memory could grow far beyond the intended bound. Any remotely reachable application that processes multipart/form-data is exposed; enough crafted parts can exhaust JVM heap memory and interrupt request handling.
Summary
What happened
Resource exhaustion in affected Apache Tomcat releases allows remote attackers to interrupt service via crafted multipart requests. Request.parseParts used the request-parameter limit as the multipart-part limit while retaining every part's headers, so header memory could grow far beyond the intended bound. Any remotely reachable application that processes multipart/form-data is exposed; enough crafted parts can exhaust JVM heap memory and interrupt request handling.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2025-48988
- Published
- Jun 16, 2025
- Updated
- Nov 3, 2025
- Vendor
- The Apache Software Foundation
- Product
- Apache Tomcat
- Classifications
- CWE-770, T1499.003
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jun 16, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Nov 3, 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=10.1.0-M1 <=10.1.41
- Affected versionversion=11.0.0-M1 <=11.0.7
- Affected versionversion=8.5.0 <=8.5.100
- Affected versionversion=9.0.0.M1 <=9.0.105
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
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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