GHSA-qpgp-93vx-g8v8
HIGHGHSA-qpgp-93vx-g8v8 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in puma. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-qpgp-93vx-g8v8 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Puma PROXY Protocol v1 Parser Allows Remote Memory Exhaustion
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-qpgp-93vx-g8v8.
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-qpgp-93vx-g8v8 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 366,357 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
puma💎pumaReal-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
Impact
PROXY protocol support for Puma was added in version 5.5.0.
When PROXY protocol v1 support is enabled, Puma reads incoming bytes into an internal buffer. It waits for "\r\n" to determine whether a PROXY v1 line is present. If an attacker opens a TCP connection and continuously sends bytes without CRLF, Puma keeps appending to this pre-parse buffer.
This can cause unbounded in-process memory growth and additional CPU cost from repeatedly scanning the growing buffer for CRLF. A single, unauthenticated TCP connection can drive significant memory growth and may cause process/container OOM or degraded availability.
Only Puma servers using the following non-default config are affected:
set_remote_address proxy_protocol: :v1
Patches
Users should upgrade to versions 7.2.1 or 8.0.2.
Workarounds
- Disable PROXY protocol v1 parsing if it is not required:
# remove/comment this:
# set_remote_address proxy_protocol: :v1
- Restrict direct network access to Puma listeners using PROXY protocol:
- Only allow trusted load balancers/reverse proxies to connect.
- Block arbitrary client TCP access with firewall/security group rules.
Resources
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | puma | ≥ 8.0.0&&< 8.0.2 | 8.0.2 |
| 💎RubyGems | puma | ≥ 5.5.0&&< 7.2.1 | 7.2.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for puma. 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 puma to 8.0.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-qpgp-93vx-g8v8 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-qpgp-93vx-g8v8 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-qpgp-93vx-g8v8. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-qpgp-93vx-g8v8 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-qpgp-93vx-g8v8 across RubyGems dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.