GHSA-mmrq-6999-72v8 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) vulnerability in openssl. EPSS puts its 30-day exploitation probability at 10.7% (96th percentile). A fix is available for openssl — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Ruby Openssl Allows Incorrect Value Comparison
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
GHSA-mmrq-6999-72v8 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 377,333 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 10–50% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
openssl💎opensslReal-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
An issue was discovered in the OpenSSL library in Ruby when two OpenSSL::X509::Name objects are compared using ==, depending on the ordering, non-equal objects may return true. When the first argument is one character longer than the second, or the second argument contains a character that is one less than a character in the same position of the first argument, the result of == will be true. This could be leveraged to create an illegitimate certificate that may be accepted as legitimate and then used in signing or encryption operations.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | openssl | all versions | 2.0.9bundle update openssl --conservative |
| 💎RubyGems | openssl | ≥ 2.1.0&&< 2.1.2 | 2.1.2bundle update openssl --conservative |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for openssl, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update openssl to 2.0.9 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-mmrq-6999-72v8 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 GHSA-mmrq-6999-72v8 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-mmrq-6999-72v8. 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.
Subscription Asset Manager is now in a reduced support phase receiving only Critical impact security fixes. This issue has been rated as having a security impact of Important, and is not currently planned to be addressed in future updates. Red Hat Virtualization includes a vulnerable version of ruby, however the…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | ruby-0:2.0.0.648-34.el7_6 | RHSA-2018:3738 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 Extended Update Support | ruby-0:2.0.0.648-34.el7_4 | RHSA-2019:1948 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 Extended Update Support | ruby-0:2.0.0.648-34.el7_5 | RHSA-2019:2565 |
| Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | rh-ruby23-ruby-0:2.3.8-69.el6 | RHSA-2018:3729 |
| Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | rh-ruby24-ruby-0:2.4.5-91.el6 | RHSA-2018:3730 |
| Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | rh-ruby25-ruby-0:2.5.3-6.el7 | RHSA-2018:3731 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-mmrq-6999-72v8 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-mmrq-6999-72v8 across RubyGems dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.