CVE-2021-22880 — activerecord
HIGHCVE-2021-22880 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in activerecord. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for activerecord — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Active Record subject to Regular Expression Denial-of-Service (ReDoS)
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-2021-22880 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 377,166 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
activerecord💎activerecord💎activerecordReal-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
The PostgreSQL adapter in Active Record before 6.1.2.1, 6.0.3.5, 5.2.4.5 suffers from a regular expression denial of service (REDoS) vulnerability. Carefully crafted input can cause the input validation in the money type of the PostgreSQL adapter in Active Record to spend too much time in a regular expression, resulting in the potential for a DoS attack. This only impacts Rails applications that are using PostgreSQL along with money type columns that take user input.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | activerecord | ≥ 5.0.0&&< 5.2.4.5 | 5.2.4.5bundle update activerecord --conservative |
| 💎RubyGems | activerecord | ≥ 6.0.0&&< 6.0.3.5 | 6.0.3.5bundle update activerecord --conservative |
| 💎RubyGems | activerecord | ≥ 6.1.0&&< 6.1.2.1 | 6.1.2.1bundle update activerecord --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 activerecord, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update activerecord to 5.2.4.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-22880 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-2021-22880 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2021-22880. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-22880 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2021-22880 across RubyGems dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.