CVE-2026-54297 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-674 vulnerability in faraday. A fix is available for faraday — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Faraday: Uncontrolled recursion in NestedParamsEncoder allows stack exhaustion DoS via deeply nested query parameters
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.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-54297.
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-2026-54297 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 379,145 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
faraday💎faradayReal-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
Faraday is an HTTP client library abstraction layer that provides a common interface over many adapters. From 1.0.0 until 1.10.6 and 2.14.3, Faraday::NestedParamsEncoder, the default nested query parameter encoder/decoder in Faraday, decodes nested query strings without enforcing a maximum nesting depth. A crafted query string causes Faraday to build a deeply nested Ruby Hash structure. The internal dehash routine then recursively walks this attacker-controlled structure without a depth limit. At sufficient depth, Ruby raises an uncaught SystemStackError (stack level too deep), crashing the calling thread or worker. This can lead to denial of service in applications that pass attacker-controlled query strings to Faraday's nested query parsing or URL-building paths. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.10.6 and 2.14.3.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | faraday | ≥ 2.0.0&&< 2.14.3 | 2.14.3bundle update faraday --conservative |
| 💎RubyGems | faraday | ≥ 1.0.0&&< 1.10.6 | 1.10.6bundle update faraday --conservative |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for faraday, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update faraday to 2.14.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-54297 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-2026-54297 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-54297. 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.
This flaw has an Important impact as applications utilizing the Faraday HTTP client library in Red Hat products are susceptible to a denial of service. A remote attacker can send a specially crafted nested query string, causing the Faraday::NestedParamsEncoder to create an overly deep data structure. This unbounded…
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2026-54297 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Satellite 6.16 for RHEL 8 | rubygem-faraday-0:1.10.6-1.el8sat | RHSA-2026:50223 |
| Red Hat Satellite 6.17 for RHEL 9 | rubygem-faraday-0:1.10.6-1.el9sat | RHSA-2026:50222 |
| Red Hat Satellite 6.18 for RHEL 9 | rubygem-faraday-0:1.10.6-1.el9sat | RHSA-2026:50263 |
| Red Hat Satellite 6.19 for RHEL 9 | rubygem-faraday-0:1.10.6-1.el9sat | RHSA-2026:50221 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-54297 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-54297 across RubyGems dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.