CVE-2025-61780 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.8) Information Exposure vulnerability in rack. A fix is available for rack — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Rack has Possible Information Disclosure 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-2025-61780.
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-2025-61780 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 377,636 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
rack💎rack💎rackReal-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
Summary
A possible information disclosure vulnerability existed in Rack::Sendfile when running behind a proxy that supports x-sendfile headers (such as Nginx). Specially crafted headers could cause Rack::Sendfile to miscommunicate with the proxy and trigger unintended internal requests, potentially bypassing proxy-level access restrictions.
Details
When Rack::Sendfile received untrusted x-sendfile-type or x-accel-mapping headers from a client, it would interpret them as proxy configuration directives. This could cause the middleware to send a "redirect" response to the proxy, prompting it to reissue a new internal request that was not subject to the proxy's access controls.
An attacker could exploit this by:
- Setting a crafted
x-sendfile-type: x-accel-redirectheader. - Setting a crafted
x-accel-mappingheader. - Requesting a path that qualifies for proxy-based acceleration.
Impact
Attackers could bypass proxy-enforced restrictions and access internal endpoints intended to be protected (such as administrative pages). The vulnerability did not allow arbitrary file reads but could expose sensitive application routes.
This issue only affected systems meeting all of the following conditions:
- The application used
Rack::Sendfilewith a proxy that supportsx-accel-redirect(e.g., Nginx). - The proxy did not always set or remove the
x-sendfile-typeandx-accel-mappingheaders. - The application exposed an endpoint that returned a body responding to
.to_path.
Mitigation
-
Upgrade to a fixed version of Rack which requires explicit configuration to enable
x-accel-redirect:use Rack::Sendfile, "x-accel-redirect" -
Alternatively, configure the proxy to always set or strip the headers (you should be doing this!):
proxy_set_header x-sendfile-type x-accel-redirect; proxy_set_header x-accel-mapping /var/www/=/files/; -
Or in Rails applications, disable sendfile completely:
config.action_dispatch.x_sendfile_header = nil
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | rack | all versions | 2.2.20bundle update rack --conservative |
| 💎RubyGems | rack | ≥ 3.0&&< 3.1.18 | 3.1.18bundle update rack --conservative |
| 💎RubyGems | rack | ≥ 3.2&&< 3.2.3 | 3.2.3bundle update rack --conservative |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for rack, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update rack to 2.2.20 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-61780 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-2025-61780 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2025-61780. 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2025-61780 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2025-61780 across RubyGems dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.