# CVE-2018-5526: Denial of service in BIG-IP (ASM)

> Attackers can bypass Behavioral DOS protection on F5 BIG-IP ASM, leading to potential service disruption during attacks.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 1 Jun 2018
- **Updated:** 17 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-4vpm-5p84-vm6f

## What is CVE-2018-5526?

CVE-2018-5526 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in F5 Big-Ip Application Security Manager, published on 1 Jun 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

Under certain conditions, on F5 BIG-IP ASM 13.1.0-13.1.0.5, Behavioral DOS (BADOS) protection may fail during an attack.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-5526?

It affects 1 product.


Products: F5 Big-Ip Application Security Manager.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-5526?

No fix has been published for CVE-2018-5526 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2018-5526 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-5526 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in F5 Big-Ip Application Security Manager

- [CVE-2019-6665](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-6665/): Other in BIG-IP ASM (critical 9.4)
- [CVE-2019-6650](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-6650/): Information disclosure in BIG-IP ASM (critical 9.1)
- [CVE-2025-24326](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-24326/): BIG-IP Advanced WAF/ASM BADoS vulnerability (high 8.9)
- [CVE-2025-55669](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-55669/): BIG-IP HTTP/2 vulnerability (high 8.7)
- [CVE-2009-4420](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-4420/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 7.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-5526 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-5526 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in F5 Big-Ip Application Security Manager, published on 1 Jun 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-5526 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: F5 Big-Ip Application Security Manager. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-5526/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-5526/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-5526
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-5526
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-5526

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-5526/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.