CVE-2024-35176 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in rexml. 2 public exploit references exist, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for rexml — see the affected versions and patch details below.
REXML contains a denial of service vulnerability
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2024-35176.
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-2024-35176 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
rexmlReal-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
REXML is an XML toolkit for Ruby. The REXML gem before 3.2.6 has a denial of service vulnerability when it parses an XML that has many <s in an attribute value. Those who need to parse untrusted XMLs may be impacted to this vulnerability. The REXML gem 3.2.7 or later include the patch to fix this vulnerability. As a workaround, don't parse untrusted XMLs.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | rexml | all versions | 3.2.7bundle update rexml --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 rexml, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update rexml to 3.2.7 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-35176 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-2024-35176 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-35176. 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 Enterprise Linux 8 | ruby:2.5-8100020240627152904.489197e6 | RHSA-2024:4499 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | pcs-0:0.10.18-2.el8_10.1 | RHSA-2024:5338 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-35176 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-35176 across RubyGems dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.