There is a possible DoS vulnerability in the Token Authentication logic in Action Controller. This vulnerability has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2021-22904.

Versions Affected: >= 4.0.0 Not affected: < 4.0.0 Fixed Versions: 6.1.3.2, 6.0.3.7, 5.2.4.6, 5.2.6

Impact

Impacted code uses authenticate_or_request_with_http_token or authenticate_with_http_token for request authentication. Impacted code will look something like this:

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  before_action :authenticate

  private

  def authenticate
    authenticate_or_request_with_http_token do |token, options|
      # ...
    end
  end
end

All users running an affected release should either upgrade or use one of the workarounds immediately.

Releases

The fixed releases are available at the normal locations.

Workarounds

The following monkey patch placed in an initializer can be used to work around the issue:

module ActionController::HttpAuthentication::Token
  AUTHN_PAIR_DELIMITERS = /(?:,|;|\t)/
end

There is a possible information disclosure / unintended method execution vulnerability in Action Pack which has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2021-22885.

Versions Affected: >= 2.0.0. Not affected: < 2.0.0. Fixed Versions: 6.1.3.2, 6.0.3.7, 5.2.4.6, 5.2.6

Impact

There is a possible information disclosure / unintended method execution vulnerability in Action Pack when using the redirect_to or polymorphic_url helper with untrusted user input.

Vulnerable code will look like this:

redirect_to(params[:some_param])

All users running an affected release should either upgrade or use one of the workarounds immediately.

Workarounds

To work around this problem, it is recommended to use an allow list for valid parameters passed from the user. For example:

private def check(param)
  case param
  when "valid"
    param
  else
    "/"
  end
end

def index
  redirect_to(check(params[:some_param]))
end

Or force the user input to be cast to a string like this:

def index
  redirect_to(params[:some_param].to_s)
end

There is a strong parameters bypass vector in ActionPack.

Versions Affected: rails <= 6.0.3 Not affected: rails < 4.0.0 Fixed Versions: rails >= 5.2.4.3, rails >= 6.0.3.1

Impact

In some cases user supplied information can be inadvertently leaked from Strong Parameters. Specifically the return value of each, or each_value, or each_pair will return the underlying "untrusted" hash of data that was read from the parameters. Applications that use this return value may be inadvertently use untrusted user input.

Impacted code will look something like this:

def update
  # Attacker has included the parameter: `{ is_admin: true }`
  User.update(clean_up_params)
end

def clean_up_params
   params.each { |k, v|  SomeModel.check(v) if k == :name }
end

Note the mistaken use of each in the clean_up_params method in the above example.

Workarounds

Do not use the return values of each, each_value, or each_pair in your application.

There is a possible remote code execution vulnerability in Action Pack. This vulnerability has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2016-2098.

Versions Affected: 3.2.x, 4.0.x, 4.1.x, 4.2.x Not affected: 5.0+ Fixed Versions: 3.2.22.2, 4.1.14.2, 4.2.5.2

Impact

Applications that pass unverified user input to the render method in a controller or a view may be vulnerable to a code injection.

Impacted code will look like this:

class TestController < ApplicationController
  def show
    render params[:id]
  end
end

An attacker could use the request parameters to coerce the above example to execute arbitrary ruby code.

All users running an affected release should either upgrade or use one of the workarounds immediately.

Releases

The FIXED releases are available at the normal locations.

Workarounds

A workaround to this issue is to not pass arbitrary user input to the render method. Instead, verify that data before passing it to the render method.

For example, change this:

def index
  render params[:id]
end

To this:

def index
  render verify_template(params[:id])
end

private
def verify_template(name)
  # add verification logic particular to your application here
end

Patches

To aid users who aren't able to upgrade immediately we have provided a patch for it. It is in git-am format and consist of a single changeset.

• 3-2-secure_inline_with_params.patch - Patch for 3.2 series
• 4-1-secure_inline_with_params.patch - Patch for 4.1 series
• 4-2-secure_inline_with_params.patch - Patch for 4.2 series

Credits

Thanks to both Tobias Kraze from makandra and joernchen of Phenoelit for reporting this!

There is a possible directory traversal and information leak vulnerability in Action View. This vulnerability has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2016-0752.

Versions Affected: All. Not affected: None. Fixed Versions: 5.0.0.beta1.1, 4.2.5.1, 4.1.14.1, 3.2.22.1

Impact

Applications that pass unverified user input to the render method in a controller may be vulnerable to an information leak vulnerability.

Impacted code will look something like this:

def index
  render params[:id]
end

Carefully crafted requests can cause the above code to render files from unexpected places like outside the application's view directory, and can possibly escalate this to a remote code execution attack.

All users running an affected release should either upgrade or use one of the workarounds immediately.

Releases

The FIXED releases are available at the normal locations.

Workarounds

A workaround to this issue is to not pass arbitrary user input to the render method. Instead, verify that data before passing it to the render method.

For example, change this:

def index
  render params[:id]
end

To this:

def index
  render verify_template(params[:id])
end

private
def verify_template(name)
  # add verification logic particular to your application here
end

Patches

To aid users who aren't able to upgrade immediately we have provided patches for the two supported release series. They are in git-am format and consist of a single changeset.

• 3-2-render_data_leak.patch - Patch for 3.2 series
• 4-1-render_data_leak.patch - Patch for 4.1 series
• 4-2-render_data_leak.patch - Patch for 4.2 series
• 5-0-render_data_leak.patch - Patch for 5.0 series

Please note that only the 4.1.x and 4.2.x series are supported at present. Users of earlier unsupported releases are advised to upgrade as soon as possible as we cannot guarantee the continued availability of security fixes for unsupported releases.

Credits

Thanks John Poulin for reporting this!

There is a possible object leak which can lead to a denial of service vulnerability in Action Pack. This vulnerability has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2016-0751.

Versions Affected: All. Not affected: None. Fixed Versions: 5.0.0.beta1.1, 4.2.5.1, 4.1.14.1, 3.2.22.1

Impact

A carefully crafted accept header can cause a global cache of mime types to grow indefinitely which can lead to a possible denial of service attack in Action Pack.

All users running an affected release should either upgrade or use one of the workarounds immediately.

Releases

The FIXED releases are available at the normal locations.

Workarounds

This attack can be mitigated by a proxy that only allows known mime types in the Accept header.

Placing the following code in an initializer will also mitigate the issue:

require 'action_dispatch/http/mime_type'

Mime.const_set :LOOKUP, Hash.new { |h,k|
  Mime::Type.new(k) unless k.blank?
}

Patches

To aid users who aren't able to upgrade immediately we have provided patches for the two supported release series. They are in git-am format and consist of a single changeset.

• 5-0-mime_types_leak.patch - Patch for 5.0 series
• 4-2-mime_types_leak.patch - Patch for 4.2 series
• 4-1-mime_types_leak.patch - Patch for 4.1 series
• 3-2-mime_types_leak.patch - Patch for 3.2 series

Please note that only the 4.1.x and 4.2.x series are supported at present. Users of earlier unsupported releases are advised to upgrade as soon as possible as we cannot guarantee the continued availability of security fixes for unsupported releases.

Credits

Aaron Patterson <3<3

There is an object leak vulnerability for wildcard controllers in Action Pack. This vulnerability has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2015-7581.

Versions Affected: >= 4.0.0 and < 5.0.0.beta1 Not affected: < 4.0.0, 5.0.0.beta1 and newer Fixed Versions: 4.2.5.1, 4.1.14.1

Impact

Users that have a route that contains the string ":controller" are susceptible to objects being leaked globally which can lead to unbounded memory growth. To identify if your application is vulnerable, look for routes that contain ":controller".

Internally, Action Pack keeps a map of "url controller name" to "controller class name". This map is cached globally, and is populated even if the controller class doesn't actually exist.

All users running an affected release should either upgrade or use one of the workarounds immediately.

Releases

The FIXED releases are available at the normal locations.

Workarounds

There are no feasible workarounds for this issue.

Patches

To aid users who aren't able to upgrade immediately we have provided patches for the two supported release series. They are in git-am format and consist of a single changeset.

• 4-1-wildcard_route.patch - Patch for 4.1 series
• 4-2-wildcard_route.patch - Patch for 4.2 series

Please note that only the 4.1.x and 4.2.x series are supported at present. Users of earlier unsupported releases are advised to upgrade as soon as possible as we cannot guarantee the continued availability of security fixes for unsupported releases.