CVE-2017-15412 — nokogiri
HIGHCVE-2017-15412 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) Use After Free vulnerability in nokogiri. 2 public exploit references exist, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for nokogiri — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Nokogiri gem, via libxml, is affected by DoS vulnerabilities
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2017-15412 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,333 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
nokogiriReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects RubyGems packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Use after free in libxml2 before 2.9.5, as used in Google Chrome prior to 63.0.3239.84 and other products, allowed a remote attacker to potentially exploit heap corruption via a crafted HTML page.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | nokogiri | all versions | 1.8.2bundle update nokogiri --conservative |
Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for nokogiri, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update nokogiri to 1.8.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2017-15412 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2017-15412 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2017-15412. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Ansible Tower 3.5 for RHEL 7 | ansible-tower-35/ansible-tower:3.5.6-1 | RHBA-2020:1539 |
| Red Hat Ansible Tower 3.6 for RHEL 7 | ansible-tower-36/ansible-tower:3.6.4-1 | RHBA-2020:1540 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Supplementary | chromium-browser-0:63.0.3239.84-1.el6_9 | RHSA-2017:3401 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | libxml2-0:2.9.1-6.el7.4 | RHSA-2020:1190 |
| Text-Only JBCS | libxml2 | RHSA-2018:0287 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2017-15412 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2017-15412 across RubyGems dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.