Possible Open Redirect Vulnerability in Action PackGHSA-5hq2-xf89-9jxq
MEDIUMGHSA-5hq2-xf89-9jxq is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) Open Redirect vulnerability in actionpack. A fix is available for actionpack — see the affected versions and patch details below.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-5hq2-xf89-9jxq by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,738 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
actionpackReal-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
There is a possible Open Redirect Vulnerability in Action Pack.
Versions Affected: >= v6.1.0.rc2 Not affected: < v6.1.0.rc2 Fixed Versions: 6.1.3.2
Impact
This is similar to CVE-2021-22881. Specially crafted Host headers in combination with certain "allowed host" formats can cause the Host Authorization middleware in Action Pack to redirect users to a malicious website.
Since rails/rails@9bc7ea5, strings in config.hosts that do not have a leading dot are converted to regular expressions without proper escaping. This causes, for example, config.hosts << "sub.example.com" to permit a request with a Host header value of sub-example.com.
Releases
The fixed releases are available at the normal locations.
Workarounds
The following monkey patch put in an initializer can be used as a workaround.
class ActionDispatch::HostAuthorization::Permissions
def sanitize_string(host)
if host.start_with?(".")
/\A(.+\.)?#{Regexp.escape(host[1..-1])}\z/i
else
/\A#{Regexp.escape host}\z/i
end
end
end
Patches
To aid users who aren't able to upgrade immediately we have provided patches for the two supported release series. They are in git-am format and consist of a single changeset.
- 6-1-open-redirect.patch - Patch for 6.1 series
Please note that only the 6.1.Z, 6.0.Z, and 5.2.Z series are supported at present. Users of earlier unsupported releases are advised to upgrade as soon as possible as we cannot guarantee the continued availability of security fixes for unsupported releases.
Credits
Thanks Jonathan Hefner (https://hackerone.com/jonathanhefner) for reporting this bug!
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | actionpack | ≥ 6.1.0.rc2&&< 6.1.3.2 | 6.1.3.2bundle update actionpack --conservative |
Affected Products
railsrubyonrailsDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for actionpack, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update actionpack to 6.1.3.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-5hq2-xf89-9jxq is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop reflecting attacker-controlled destinations: resolve every redirect target against an allowlist of paths or hosts you own, prefer a server-side key over a full URL in the request, and reject absolute URLs entirely where the flow only ever needs a relative one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-5hq2-xf89-9jxq in your dependencies?
Find it across RubyGems, including transitive dependencies.