Ruby: Security bypass vulnerability — GLSA 200510-05

Ruby is vulnerable to a security bypass of the safe level mechanism.

Affected packages

dev-lang/ruby on all architectures
Affected versions < 1.8.3
Unaffected versions >= 1.8.3

Background

Ruby is an interpreted scripting language for quick and easy object-oriented programming. Ruby supports the safe execution of untrusted code using a safe level and taint flag mechanism.

Description

Dr. Yutaka Oiwa discovered that Ruby fails to properly enforce safe level protections.

Impact

An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code beyond the restrictions specified in each safe level.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All Ruby users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=dev-lang/ruby-1.8.3"

References

Release date
October 06, 2005

Latest revision
October 06, 2005: 01

Severity
normal

Exploitable
remote

Bugzilla entries