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Atomicorp WAF Research Note: CVE-2025-54123

Hoverfly <= 1.11.3 - Remote Code Execution

CVE Details

Status: Attack Blocked by Atomicorp
Technical CPE data

This section lists vulnerable CPE matches retained from the NVD configurations. It supplements the readable affected-product information above.

  • cpe:2.3:a:hoverfly:hoverfly:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
    • Version end (exclusive): 1.12.0
    • NVD match criteria ID: 52876127-6BCA-42D6-9133-2A7A0B326DE8

Vulnerability Description

Hoverfly is an open source API simulation tool. In versions 1.11.3 and prior, the middleware functionality in Hoverfly is vulnerable to command injection vulnerability at /api/v2/hoverfly/middleware endpoint due to insufficient validation and sanitization in user input. The vulnerability exists in the middleware management API endpoint /api/v2/hoverfly/middleware. This issue is born due to combination of three code level flaws: Insufficient Input Validation in middleware.go line 94-96; Unsafe Command Execution in local_middleware.go line 14-19; and Immediate Execution During Testing in hoverfly_service.go line 173. This allows an attacker to gain remote code execution (RCE) on any system running the vulnerable Hoverfly service. Since the input is directly passed to system commands without proper checks, an attacker can upload a malicious payload or directly execute arbitrary commands (including reverse shells) on the host server with the privileges of the Hoverfly process. Commit 17e60a9bc78826deb4b782dca1c1abd3dbe60d40 in version 1.12.0 disables the set middleware API by default, and subsequent changes to documentation make users aware of the security changes of exposing the set middleware API.

  1. Maintain the observed Atomicorp protections. Keep your Atomicorp commercial rules current and confirm that the selected observed rules (344360 ) have not been locally disabled. Atomicorp commercial rules are enabled by default. If you use Atomic WAF, review the applicable policy and rule settings.

  2. Apply the vendor’s remediation. WAF protection is defense in depth and does not replace upgrading or following the affected vendor’s guidance.

  3. Validate after changes. Confirm rule updates are current, review WAF events for the affected application, and test application behavior after vendor upgrades, mitigations, or local policy changes.

Research Notes

Atomicorp WAF protections are designed around attack techniques and exploit behaviors, allowing existing protections to apply across multiple vulnerabilities without requiring a unique rule for every CVE.

Public Vulnerability References

Test or Research Source

Research Note Context

This research note documents exploit-technique analysis associated with this vulnerability and references Atomicorp WAF protections observed during engineering review, testing, or validation activities.

Atomicorp security controls are generally designed to identify and mitigate attack techniques and exploit behaviors rather than individual CVE identifiers. As a result, protections developed for one vulnerability may also apply to related attack variants and future vulnerabilities using similar techniques.

Learn More

Atomicorp develops commercially supported security technologies for web applications, servers, endpoints, workloads, and legacy enterprise platforms.

Organizations interested in protecting systems against exploit techniques associated with vulnerabilities such as this one can learn more about:

  • Atomic ModSecurity Rules: commercially maintained WAF rules for ModSecurity deployments, including protections for web attacks, bots, scanners, malware, exploitation attempts, and emerging vulnerability classes.
  • Atomic WAF: an enterprise web application firewall with Atomicorp rules, centralized management, reporting, authentication controls, and operational tooling.
  • Atomic ModSecurity Integrator: a special licensing option for MSPs, MSSPs, OEMs, VARs, reverse proxy providers, and other integrators who want to incorporate Atomicorp ModSecurity rule technology into their own products or services.
  • Atomic OSSEC: an enterprise OSSEC-based intrusion detection, compliance, and security monitoring platform.
  • Atomic Protector: workload protection for Linux, web, cloud, data center, and hybrid environments.

For additional information, product evaluations, or technical discussions, visit https://www.atomicorp.com/ or https://modsecurity.io/ .