CVE-2026-34831 — rack
MEDIUMCVE-2026-34831 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.8) CWE-130 vulnerability in rack. A fix is available for rack — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Rack: Content-Length mismatch in Rack::Files error responses
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-2026-34831.
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-2026-34831 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
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
Rack is a modular Ruby web server interface. Prior to versions 2.2.23, 3.1.21, and 3.2.6, Rack::Files#fail sets the Content-Length response header using String#size instead of String#bytesize. When the response body contains multibyte UTF-8 characters, the declared Content-Length is smaller than the number of bytes actually sent on the wire. Because Rack::Files reflects the requested path in 404 responses, an attacker can trigger this mismatch by requesting a non-existent path containing percent-encoded UTF-8 characters. This results in incorrect HTTP response framing and may cause response desynchronization in deployments that rely on the incorrect Content-Length value. This issue has been patched in versions 2.2.23, 3.1.21, and 3.2.6.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | rack | all versions | 2.2.23bundle update rack --conservative |
| 💎RubyGems | rack | ≥ 3.0.0.beta1&&< 3.1.21 | 3.1.21bundle update rack --conservative |
| 💎RubyGems | rack | ≥ 3.2.0&&< 3.2.6 | 3.2.6bundle 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 2.2.23 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-34831 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-2026-34831 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-34831. 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-2026-34831 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-34831 across RubyGems dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.