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OSSEC / HIDS Rule 30113

OSSEC / HIDS rule catalog

  • Rule family: OSSEC / HIDS
  • Rule ID: 30113
  • Definition status: Present in current source
  • Alert message / subject: Invalid method in request
  • Rule level: 7
  • Definition checked: 2026-10-21

Interpretation and response

This event is recorded as “Invalid method in request”. Review the originating log and the affected host or service to determine whether the activity was expected.

An OSSEC/HIDS event records or correlates activity. Blocking depends on the originating application and any separately configured Active Response policy; an alert alone does not prove that an attack was blocked.

The current rule explicitly disables Active Response for this event.

Documentation

The following guidance was migrated from the historical wiki and reviewed against the rule definition. Legacy ASL product names and interface instructions refer to the versions documented then. Use the current metadata above and your installed configuration when interpreting thresholds, notification settings and response behavior.

Rule ID

30113

Status

The wiki marked this rule Active at the source revision. Current definition status is shown above.

Description

This event is not caused by ASL. ASL is simply reporting when this occurs with Apache, and ASL neither causes this nor can it change this behavior in apache. Disabling this rule will only cause ASL to not report the event, it wont change apache behavior nor will disabling this prevent apache form rejecting these requests.

This rule reports when Apache has completely rejected a connection from a client, and Apache has determined the method used is Invalid. ASL (historical reference) does not cause this, this is simply a reporting rule, and disabling this rule will not prevent Apache from rejecting these invalid connections.

This rule does not shun the offending IP by default. Please see rule HIDS_30122 which will shun multiple 30113 events from the same IP within a period of time.

Certain DOS attacks use this method to use up all file handles in use on the system, and Heartbleed attacks ( See the Vuln_web_cve-2014-016 (historical reference) article for details) can generate this alert as well.

False Positives

None. This rule simply reports when Apache has rejected the connection because it is using an invalid method.

Tuning Recommendations

None. Disabling this rule will have no effect on apache rejecting these connections. This event is not caused by ASL, and ASL can not change this behavior in apache.

Apache Log Examples

[error] [client 192.0.2.10] Invalid method in request /x16/x03/x01

Source and revision

Migrated from HIDS_30113, wiki page 501, revision 4784 (20140411). Documentation review: 2026-10-21. An archived wiki status of Active is not a current deployment status.

For assistance, provide the rule ID, installed product and rule version, and a sanitized event to Atomicorp support .