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HIGH severity

CVE-2017-16516 — yajl-ruby

HIGHFix: brianmario/yajl-ruby#178

CVE-2017-16516 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-134 vulnerability in yajl-ruby. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for yajl-ruby — see the affected versions and patch details below.

yajl-ruby gem Denial of Service vulnerability

Also known asGHSA-wwh7-4jw9-33x6
Published
Updated
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
1 known
Exploitation data as of Nov 4, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
3.8%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs90th percentile — riskier than 90% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
1.05%2.18%3.30%4.43%1.7%3.8%May 26Sep 26Nov 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

Where this sits among everything scored

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected
💎yajl-ruby

Real-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

In the yajl-ruby gem 1.3.0 for Ruby, when a crafted JSON file is supplied to Yajl::Parser.new.parse, the whole ruby process crashes with a SIGABRT in the yajl_string_decode function in yajl_encode.c. This results in the whole ruby process terminating and potentially a denial of service.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
💎RubyGemsyajl-rubyall versions1.3.1bundle update yajl-ruby --conservative

Affected Products

2 products · 2 configurations
OS
debian linuxdebian
1 version
7.0
Application
yajl-rubyyajl-ruby_project
1 version
1.3.0
Exploits & PoCs
1

Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.

In the yajl-ruby gem 1.3.0 for Ruby, when a crafted JSON file is supplie…

github.comNVDMar 2020

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for yajl-ruby, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update yajl-ruby to 1.3.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2017-16516 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.

Frequently Asked Questions

In the yajl-ruby gem 1.3.0 for Ruby, when a crafted JSON file is supplied to Yajl::Parser.new.parse, the whole ruby process crashes with a SIGABRT in the yajl_string_decode function in yajl_encode.c. This results in the whole ruby process terminating and potentially a denial of service.
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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CVE-2017-16516: yajl-ruby DoS — Fixed in 1.3.1