GHSA-jj47-x69x-mxrm is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.9) CWE-122 vulnerability in yajl-ruby. 2 public exploit or proof-of-concept references are indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for yajl-ruby — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-jj47-x69x-mxrm.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
yajl-rubyReal-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
NOTE: A previous patch, 1.4.2, fixed the heap memory issue, but could still lead to a DoS infinite loop. Please update to version 1.4.3
The 1.x branch and the 2.x branch of yajl contain an integer overflow which leads to subsequent heap memory corruption when dealing with large (~2GB) inputs.
Details
The reallocation logic at yajl_buf.c#L64 may result in the need 32bit integer wrapping to 0 when need approaches a value of 0x80000000 (i.e. ~2GB of data), which results in a reallocation of buf->alloc into a small heap chunk.
These integers are declared as size_t in the 2.x branch of yajl, which practically prevents the issue from triggering on 64bit platforms, however this does not preclude this issue triggering on 32bit builds on which size_t is a 32bit integer.
Subsequent population of this under-allocated heap chunk is based on the original buffer size, leading to heap memory corruption.
Impact
We rate this as a moderate severity vulnerability which mostly impacts process availability as we believe exploitation for arbitrary code execution to be unlikely.
Patches
Patched in yajl-ruby 1.4.3
Workarounds
Avoid passing large inputs to YAJL
References
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- Open an issue in yajl-ruby
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | yajl-ruby | all versions | 1.4.3bundle update yajl-ruby --conservative |
Affected Products
yajl-rubyyajl-ruby_projectResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for yajl-ruby, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update yajl-ruby to 1.4.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-jj47-x69x-mxrm is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable.
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.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux only ships YAJL 2.x versions and on 32-bit systems, more than 2GiB of data will be required for triggering this bug. However, on 64-bit systems, more than 9EiB of data will be needed, making this vulnerability very hard to be exploited on these systems.
Avoid passing large inputs to the YAJL library.Source: Red Hat security advisory for GHSA-jj47-x69x-mxrm (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | yajl-0:2.1.0-11.el8 | RHSA-2022:7524 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Extended Update Support | yajl-0:2.1.0-13.el8_6 | RHSA-2024:2063 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | yajl-0:2.1.0-21.el9 | RHSA-2022:8252 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-jj47-x69x-mxrm in your dependencies?
Find it across RubyGems, including transitive dependencies.