GHSA-wh98-p28r-vrc9 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.4) Information Exposure vulnerability in actionpack. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-wh98-p28r-vrc9 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Exposure of information in Action Pack
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-wh98-p28r-vrc9 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
actionpack💎actionpack💎actionpack💎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
Impact
Under certain circumstances response bodies will not be closed, for example a bug in a webserver or a bug in a Rack middleware. In the event a response is not notified of a close, ActionDispatch::Executor will not know to reset thread local state for the next request. This can lead to data being leaked to subsequent requests, especially when interacting with ActiveSupport::CurrentAttributes.
Upgrading to the FIXED versions of Rails will ensure mitigation of this issue even in the context of a buggy webserver or middleware implementation.
Patches
This has been fixed in Rails 7.0.2.2, 6.1.4.6, 6.0.4.6, and 5.2.6.2.
Workarounds
Upgrading is highly recommended, but to work around this problem the following middleware can be used:
class GuardedExecutor < ActionDispatch::Executor
def call(env)
ensure_completed!
super
end
private
def ensure_completed!
@executor.new.complete! if @executor.active?
end
end
# Ensure the guard is inserted before ActionDispatch::Executor
Rails.application.configure do
config.middleware.swap ActionDispatch::Executor, GuardedExecutor, executor
end
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💎RubyGems | actionpack | ≥ 5.0.0.0&&< 5.2.6.2 | 5.2.6.2 |
| 💎RubyGems | actionpack | ≥ 6.0.0.0&&< 6.0.4.6 | 6.0.4.6 |
| 💎RubyGems | actionpack | ≥ 6.1.0.0&&< 6.1.4.6 | 6.1.4.6 |
| 💎RubyGems | actionpack | ≥ 7.0.0.0&&< 7.0.2.2 | 7.0.2.2 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for actionpack. 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 actionpack to 5.2.6.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-wh98-p28r-vrc9 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-wh98-p28r-vrc9 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-wh98-p28r-vrc9. 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-wh98-p28r-vrc9 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-wh98-p28r-vrc9 across RubyGems dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.