CVE-2024-53986
CVE-2024-53986 is a Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in rails-html-sanitizer. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2024-53986 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Possible XSS vulnerability with certain configurations of rails-html-sanitizer 1.6.0
Blast Radius
rails-html-sanitizerReal-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
rails-html-sanitizer is responsible for sanitizing HTML fragments in Rails applications. There is a possible XSS vulnerability with certain configurations of Rails::HTML::Sanitizer 1.6.0 when used with Rails >= 7.1.0. A possible XSS vulnerability with certain configurations of Rails::HTML::Sanitizer may allow an attacker to inject content if HTML5 sanitization is enabled and the application developer has overridden the sanitizer's allowed tags where the "math" and "style" elements are both explicitly allowed. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.6.1.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | rails-html-sanitizer | ≥ 1.6.0&&< 1.6.1 | 1.6.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for rails-html-sanitizer. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update rails-html-sanitizer to 1.6.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-53986 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 pinpoints whether CVE-2024-53986 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2024-53986. 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-2024-53986 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2024-53986 across RubyGems dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.