Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessIdentify internet-facing BIG-IP WAF
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DeliveryCraft undisclosed malformed HTTP request
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ExploitSend to virtual server with active policy
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ExecutionTrigger unchecked error in bd process
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ImpactProcess termination causes service denial
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A10:2025 - Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions
ASVS 5.0
V16 - Security Logging and Error Handling Return value checking
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| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation requires that the target BIG-IP instance has an Advanced WAF or Application Security Manager (ASM) security policy actively configured and applied to at least one virtual server. Systems running BIG-IP without WAF/ASM modules enabled, or those with modules licensed but no policies attached to virtual servers, are not vulnerable. No authentication, user interaction, or non-default configuration beyond the presence of an active security policy is required. The attack vector is network-based with low complexity (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N), meaning remote unauthenticated attackers can exploit default configurations of BIG-IP Advanced WAF deployments. The specific nature of the 'undisclosed requests' that trigger the vulnerability has not been publicly detailed by F5, limiting defenders' ability to write preventative signatures but also reducing immediate attacker knowledge. High-availability configurations with automatic failover may experience reduced impact duration but remain exploitable. |
| Impact | This represents a significant operational risk for production WAF deployments despite the availability-only impact. The CVSS vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N indicates remote unauthenticated exploitation with low attack complexity, meaning any internet-facing BIG-IP WAF instance with an active security policy is vulnerable to trivial denial-of-service attacks. The CVSS 7.5 score accurately reflects high availability impact without confidentiality or integrity compromise. However, real-world severity depends heavily on deployment context: organizations using BIG-IP as their primary edge WAF face direct exposure, while those with redundant HA pairs or upstream DDoS mitigation may have reduced impact. The 'undisclosed requests' language suggests F5 has not publicly detailed the exploit mechanism, reducing immediate weaponization risk but also limiting defenders' ability to write detection signatures. No EPSS score provided prevents quantitative exploitation probability assessment. Not present in CISA KEV, indicating no confirmed active exploitation campaigns. The availability of a vendor patch elevates this from unmanageable to operationally addressable, though patch deployment windows on production edge devices often require careful planning. Priority should be MEDIUM-HIGH for internet-facing deployments with single points of failure, MEDIUM for HA configurations with failover capabilities. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An external attacker identifies an internet-facing F5 BIG-IP Advanced WAF instance protecting a web application (common in enterprise and financial services environments). Without requiring authentication or credentials, the attacker crafts HTTP requests with specific characteristics that trigger the unchecked error condition in the bd process policy evaluation logic. These malformed requests are sent to the virtual server configured with the WAF policy, causing the bd process to terminate and disrupting service for all users behind that virtual server. If the attacker repeats this attack or targets multiple virtual servers, they can achieve sustained denial of service against the organization's web applications until administrators restart services or apply patches. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – May 13, 2026
F5 BIG-IP Advanced WAF and Application Security Manager (ASM) suffer from a denial-of-service vulnerability when processing specially crafted requests against virtual servers with active security policies. Undisclosed malformed requests cause the bd process to terminate, disrupting service availability. Remote unauthenticated attackers can exploit this with low complexity (CVSS:3.1 AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N) achieving high availability impact (CVSS 7.5). EPSS data not provided, no active exploitation confirmed via CISA KEV at time of analysis. Vendor patch available per F5 advisory K000160727.
RemediationAI
Apply the vendor-released patch detailed in F5 Security Advisory K000160727 (https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K000160727), which provides version-specific upgrade paths and hotfix availability. Organizations should prioritize patching internet-facing BIG-IP instances with active WAF/ASM policies. If immediate patching is infeasible due to change control or maintenance window constraints, implement the following compensating controls with documented trade-offs: deploy upstream rate limiting or web application firewall filtering to pre-screen requests before they reach BIG-IP (adds latency and infrastructure cost), configure BIG-IP high-availability pairs with health monitoring to enable automatic failover when bd process crashes (masks symptoms but does not prevent exploitation), or temporarily disable specific WAF policy components if F5 advisory identifies particular signature sets as vulnerable (reduces security posture and may expose applications to other attacks). Note that disabling WAF policies entirely eliminates the vulnerability but defeats the purpose of the security investment. For production edge deployments, coordinate patching with DDoS mitigation providers to handle potential service disruption. Test patches in staging environments with representative traffic profiles, as WAF policy changes can introduce false positives affecting legitimate users.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
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Technical ContextAI · show details
F5 BIG-IP Advanced WAF and ASM provide web application firewall capabilities through security policies attached to virtual servers. The bd process (BIG-IP daemon) handles traffic inspection and policy enforcement. This vulnerability stems from unchecked return status (CWE-252), meaning the bd process fails to properly validate or handle error conditions when processing certain request types. When exploitation occurs, the bd process crashes rather than gracefully handling the malformed input, resulting in service disruption. The CPE identifier cpe:2.3:a:f5:big-ip indicates this affects the core BIG-IP application platform. The vulnerability specifically requires that a WAF or ASM security policy be actively configured and applied to a virtual server, suggesting the flaw exists in the policy evaluation or request parsing logic rather than baseline BIG-IP routing functionality.
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Severity by source
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Primary rating from Vendor (f5) · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorVendor: f5
Lifecycle Timeline
2DescriptionCVE.org
When a BIG-IP Advanced WAF or ASM security policy is configured on a virtual server, undisclosed requests can cause the bd process to terminate.
Note: Software versions which have reached End of Technical Support (EoTS) are not evaluated.
Executive ViewAI
F5 BIG-IP Advanced WAF and ASM contain a denial-of-service vulnerability allowing unauthenticated remote attackers to crash the bd process and disrupt application availability with low attack complexity. Organizations running these products in production risk immediate service outages from malicious requests, requiring prompt patching to restore resilience.
Apply vendor patch.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Information disclosure occurs when an application unintentionally exposes sensitive data that aids attackers in reconnaissance or directly compromises security.
Remote code execution affects F5 BIG-IP systems that terminate traffic on a virtual server configured with both an APM (
Remote code execution in F5 BIG-IP and BIG-IQ Configuration utility allows authenticated attackers with low privileges t
Memory-exhaustion denial of service in F5 BIG-IP affects any virtual server configured with an HTTP/2 profile, where a r
Resource exhaustion in BIG-IP Configuration utility allows remote unauthenticated attackers to trigger file descriptor e
Remote unauthenticated attackers can crash F5 BIG-IP and BIG-IP Next Traffic Management Microkernel (TMM) processes via
Traffic Management Microkernel (TMM) crash in F5 BIG-IP versions 16.1.0 through 21.0.0.1 allows unauthenticated remote a
Traffic Management Microkernel (TMM) denial-of-service in F5 BIG-IP DNS affects systems with DNS cache-enabled profiles
Remote memory exhaustion in F5 BIG-IP virtual servers crashes Traffic Management Microkernel when HTTP/2 Layer 7 DoS Pro
Traffic Management Microkernel (TMM) crashes in F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition and hardware platforms when SSL profiles are c
Remote denial-of-service in F5 BIG-IP allows unauthenticated attackers to crash the Traffic Management Microkernel (TMM)
Traffic Management Microkernel (TMM) in F5 BIG-IP terminates when processing specific traffic against UDP virtual server
Denial of service in F5 BIG-IP virtual servers with SSL profiles allows remote unauthenticated attackers to exhaust conn
EUVD-2026-29969
GHSA-p3wj-9p5j-v2f9
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
VulDB
Exploit-DB