GHSA-qg54-694p-wgpp is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-1333 vulnerability in date. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-qg54-694p-wgpp is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Regular expression denial of service vulnerability (ReDoS) in date
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-qg54-694p-wgpp 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 0 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
date💎date💎date💎dateReal-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
Date’s parsing methods including Date.parse are using Regexps internally, some of which are vulnerable against regular expression denial of service. Applications and libraries that apply such methods to untrusted input may be affected.
The fix limits the input length up to 128 bytes by default instead of changing the regexps. This is because Date gem uses many Regexps and it is possible that there are still undiscovered vulnerable Regexps. For compatibility, it is allowed to remove the limitation by explicitly passing limit keywords as nil like Date.parse(str, limit: nil), but note that it may take a long time to parse.
Please update the date gem to version 3.2.1, 3.1.2, 3.0.2, and 2.0.1, or later. You can use gem update date to update it. If you are using bundler, please add gem "date", ">= 3.2.1" to your Gemfile. If you import date from the standard library rather than as a gem you should update your Ruby install to 3.0.3, 2.7.5, 2.6.9 or later.
Users unable to upgrade may consider using Date.strptime instead with a predefined date format
Date.strptime('2001-02-20', '%Y-%m-%d')
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | date | ≥ 3.2.0&&< 3.2.1 | 3.2.1 |
| 💎RubyGems | date | ≥ 3.1.0&&< 3.1.2 | 3.1.2 |
| 💎RubyGems | date | ≥ 3.0.0&&< 3.0.2 | 3.0.2 |
| 💎RubyGems | date | all versions | 2.0.1 |
Research 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 date. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update date to 3.2.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-qg54-694p-wgpp 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 pinpoints whether GHSA-qg54-694p-wgpp is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to GHSA-qg54-694p-wgpp. 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-qg54-694p-wgpp in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-qg54-694p-wgpp across RubyGems dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.