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CVE-2021-22904 High

CVE-2021-22904

The actionpack ruby gem before 6.1.3.2, 6.0.3.7, 5.2.4.6, 5.2.6 suffers from a possible denial of service vulnerability in the Token Authentication logic in Action Controller due to a too permissive regular expression. Impacted code uses `authenticate_or_request_with_http_token` or `authenticate_with_http_token` for request authentication.

Exploit probability 4.8%
Published June 11, 2021
Required by Not available
Last source change August 7, 2026

02 / AFFECTED SOFTWARE

Affected packages

Unknown Unknown

59 explicit affected versions

RubyGems actionpack

194 explicit affected versions

03 / CONNECTIONS

Connected vulnerabilities

04 / EVIDENCE

Source records

Open Source Vulnerabilities GHSA-7wjx-3g7j-8584

There is a possible DoS vulnerability in the Token Authentication logic in Action Controller. Versions Affected: >= 4.0.0 Not affected: < 4.0.0 Fixed Versions: 6.1.3.2, 6.0.3.7, 5.2.4.6, 5.2.6 Impact ------ Impacted code uses `authenticate_or_request_with_http_token` or `authenticate_with_http_token` for request authentication. Impacted code will look something like this: ``` class PostsController < ApplicationController before_action :authenticate private def authenticate authenticate_or_request_with_http_token do |token, options| # ... end end end ``` All users running an affected release should either upgrade or use one of the workarounds immediately. Releases -------- The fixed releases are available at the normal locations. Workarounds ----------- The following monkey patch placed in an initializer can be used to work around the issue: ```ruby module ActionController::HttpAuthentication::Token AUTHN_PAIR_DELIMITERS = /(?:,|;|\t)/ end ``` Patches ------- To aid users who aren't able to upgrade immediately we have provided patches for the two supported release series. They are in git-am format and consist of a single changeset. * 5-2-http-authentication-dos.patch - Patch for 5.2 series * 6-0-http-authentication-dos.patch - Patch for 6.0 series * 6-1-http-authentication-dos.patch - Patch for 6.1 series Please note that only the 6.1.Z, 6.0.Z, and 5.2.Z series are supported at present. Users of earlier unsupported releases are advised to upgrade as soon as possible as we cannot guarantee the continued availability of security fixes for unsupported releases. Credits ------- Thank you to https://hackerone.com/wonda_tea_coffee for reporting this issue!

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Open Source Vulnerabilities CVE-2021-22904

The actionpack ruby gem before 6.1.3.2, 6.0.3.7, 5.2.4.6, 5.2.6 suffers from a possible denial of service vulnerability in the Token Authentication logic in Action Controller due to a too permissive regular expression. Impacted code uses `authenticate_or_request_with_http_token` or `authenticate_with_http_token` for request authentication.

View original source

05 / REFERENCES

Further evidence