GHSA-9j7m-rjqx-48vh CVE-2013-4287
RubyGems Regular Expression Denial of Service vulnerability
Medium
RubyGems
- Severity
- Medium
- The publisher's own rating, not a CVSS score
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 3.33%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 88.62% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
- Fix
1.8.23.1- Upgrade rubygems-update to this version or later
Description
Algorithmic complexity vulnerability in Gem::Version::VERSION_PATTERN in lib/rubygems/version.rb in RubyGems before 1.8.23.1, 1.8.24 through 1.8.25, 2.0.x before 2.0.8, and 2.1.x before 2.1.0, as used in Ruby 1.9.0 through 2.0.0p247, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption) via a crafted gem version that triggers a large amount of backtracking in a regular expression.
Affected versions
RubyGems
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| rubygems-update | < 1.8.23.1 |
1.8.23.1 |
| rubygems-update | >= 1.8.24, < 1.8.26 |
1.8.26 |
| rubygems-update | >= 2.0.0, < 2.0.8 |
2.0.8 |
| rubygems-update | >= 2.1.0.rc.1, < 2.1.0 |
2.1.0 |
How to fix
Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.
rubygems-update RubyGems → 1.8.23.1
- bundler
bundle update rubygems-update # Gemfile: gem "rubygems-update", ">= 1.8.23.1"
Weakness
CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
How to prevent it
- Architecture and Design: Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended. A strong authentication and access control model will help prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place. The login application should be protected against DoS attacks as much as possible. Limiting the database access, perhaps by caching result sets, can help minimize the resources expended. To further limit the potential for a DoS attack, consider tracking the rate of requests received from users and blocking requests that exceed a defined rate threshold.
- Architecture and Design: Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either: recognizes the attack and denies that user further access for a given amount of time, or uniformly throttles all requests in order to make it more difficult to consume resources more quickly than they can again be freed. The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question. The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute -- and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.
- Architecture and Design: Ensure that protocols have specific limits of scale placed on them.
- Implementation: Ensure that all failures in resource allocation place the system into a safe posture.
References
Advisories
Other links
- github.com/rubygems/rubygems/commit/938a7e31ac73655845ab9045629ff3f580a125da
- github.com/rubygems/rubygems/commit/b697536f2455e8c8853cf5cf8a1017a36031ed67
- github.com/rubygems/rubygems/commit/b9baec03145aed684d1cd3c87dcac3cc06becd9b
- github.com/rubygems/rubygems/commit/ed733bc379d75620f5be4213f89d1d7b38be3191
- github.com/rubygems/rubygems/blob/03a074e8838683f45611b119fd8f363aa44fe2fd/CHAN…
- github.com/rubysec/ruby-advisory-db/blob/master/gems/rubygems-update/CVE-2013-4…
- web.archive.org/web/20160806152839/https://puppet.com/security/cve/cve-2013-4287
- blog.rubygems.org/2013/09/09/CVE-2013-4287.html
- rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2013-1427.html
- rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2013-1441.html
- rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2013-1523.html
- rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2013-1852.html
- rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2014-0207.html
- openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2013/09/10/1
Timeline
- Published
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| GHSA-228f-g3h7-3fj3 RubyGems HTTPS to HTTP redirect | Medium | Also affects rubygems-update |
| GHSA-5mgj-mvv8-46mw RubyGems does not verify SSL certificate | Medium | Also affects rubygems-update |
| GHSA-qv62-xfj6-32xm RubyGems Improper Input Validation vulnerability | Medium | Also affects rubygems-update |
| GHSA-9qvm-2vhf-q649 RubyGems Regular Expression Denial of Service | Medium | Also affects rubygems-update |
| GHSA-8qxg-mff5-j3wc RubyGems Path Traversal vulnerability | Medium | Also affects rubygems-update |
| GHSA-wp3j-rvfp-624h RubyGems vulnerable to DNS hijack attack | High | Also affects rubygems-update |
| GHSA-p7f2-rr42-m9xm RubyGems Improper Input Validation vulnerability | High | Also affects rubygems-update |
| GHSA-qj2w-mw2r-pv39 RubyGems Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability | High | Also affects rubygems-update |
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