CVE-2023-40165

Unauthorized gem replacement for full names ending in numbers on rubygems.org

HIGH
7.5
CVSS Score
Published: August 17, 2023 at 05:06 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 06:16 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorRubygems.org

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Severity
HIGH7.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.5%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

rubygems.org is the Ruby community's primary gem (library) hosting service. Insufficient input validation allowed malicious actors to replace any uploaded gem version that had a platform, version number, or gem name matching `/-\d/`, permanently replacing the legitimate upload in the canonical gem storage bucket, and triggering an immediate CDN purge so that the malicious gem would be served immediately. The maintainers have checked all gems matching the `/-\d/` pattern and can confirm that no unexpected `.gem`s were found. As a result, we believe this vulnerability was _not_ exploited. The easiest way to ensure that a user's applications were not exploited by this vulnerability is to check that all of your downloaded .gems have a checksum that matches the checksum recorded in the RubyGems.org database. RubyGems contributor Maciej Mensfeld wrote a tool to automatically check that all downloaded .gem files match the checksums recorded in the RubyGems.org database. You can use it by running: `bundle add bundler-integrity` followed by `bundle exec bundler-integrity`. Neither this tool nor anything else can prove you were not exploited, but the can assist your investigation by quickly comparing RubyGems API-provided checksums with the checksums of files on your disk. The issue has been patched with improved input validation and the changes are live. No action is required on the part of the user. Users are advised to validate their local gems.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 2023-08-14
Affected range stops below 2023-08-14, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
HIGH
Availability
NONE
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-20NVD-CWE-noinfo

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