CVE-2023-28102 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.3) OS Command Injection vulnerability in discordrb. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for discordrb — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Command injection in discordrb
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-28102.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
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
discordrbReal-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
discordrb is an implementation of the Discord API using Ruby. In discordrb before commit 91e13043ffa the encoder.rb file unsafely constructs a shell string using the file parameter, which can potentially leave clients of discordrb vulnerable to command injection. The library is not directly exploitable: the exploit requires that some client of the library calls the vulnerable method with user input. However, if unsafe input reaches the library method, then an attacker can execute arbitrary shell commands on the host machine. Full impact will depend on the permissions of the process running the discordrb library and will likely not be total system access. This issue has been addressed in code, but a new release of the discordrb gem has not been uploaded to rubygems. This issue is also tracked as GHSL-2022-094.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | discordrb | all versions | 3.4.3bundle update discordrb --conservative |
Affected Products
discordrbdiscordrb_projectResearch 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 discordrb, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update discordrb to 3.4.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-28102 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-28102 in your dependencies?
Find it across RubyGems, including transitive dependencies.