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Cloudflare WAF Bypass — oversized body, header stuffing and cache poisoning

Cloudflare's WAF has per-plan inspection limits (~8KB Free, 128KB Enterprise). Padding bypass, header stuffing >100 headers, IP origin disclosure.

Gorka El BochiMay 9, 202614 min

Quick answer

The Cloudflare WAF has body inspection limits that depend on the plan: ~8 KB on Free, 128 KB on Enterprise. Classic bypass: fill the body with padding until you exceed the limit, and the payload that follows passes without inspection. Other vectors: header stuffing (>94-100 headers, OpenResty truncates), IP origin disclosure via Censys/historical DNS, cache poisoning with ignored headers, cache rule mismatch.


1. Body inspection limits

Cloudflare doesn't inspect the whole body. The limit depends on the target's plan:

PlanWAF inspection limitExpandable?
Free~8 KBNo
ProLow by defaultYes, up to 1 MB via support
BusinessLow by defaultYes, up to 1 MB via support
Enterprise128 KBYes, up to 1 MB via support

History (December 2025)

Cloudflare tried to raise the limit to 1 MB for all plans on December 5, 2025 (because of CVE-2025-55182, React RCE). They reverted it because it caused a wave of false positives. They went back to the previous limits. Only paying customers who explicitly request it have 1 MB.

Practical implication: most sites on Cloudflare Free/Pro still have low limits. Same bypass as on AWS WAF.


2. Oversized body bypass — step by step

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