CVE-2025-61770: Rack Denial of Service Vulnerability

HIGH
Advisory Identifier: GHSA-p543-xpfm-54cp
CVSS 7.5
CWE-400
Published
Advisory Summary

CVE-2025-61770 is a HIGH (CVSS 7.5) denial of service vulnerability (CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) affecting Rack libraries in the RubyGems ecosystem. The issue involves rack's unbounded multipart preamble buffering enables dos (memory exhaustion). Remediation is available by upgrading affected packages to version 2.2.19, 3.1.17, 3.2.2.

CVE-2025-61770 at a Glance

CVE Identifier CVE-2025-61770
GHSA Identifier GHSA-p543-xpfm-54cp
Severity HIGH
CVSS v3.1 Base Score 7.5
CWE Classification CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
Affected Product Rack
Package Ecosystem RubyGems
Published Date
Last Updated

Security Impact

CVSS: 7.5

The security impact metrics below are parsed directly from the CVSS v3.1 vector string (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).

Attack Vector Network (AV:N)
Attack Complexity Low (AC:L)
Privileges Required None (PR:N)
User Interaction None (UI:N)
Scope Unchanged (S:U)
Confidentiality None (C:N)
Integrity None (I:N)
Availability High (A:H)

How to Fix CVE-2025-61770

To remediate this vulnerability, upgrade all affected Rack dependencies to a patched release. Both direct and transitive dependencies should be checked, as frameworks or security libraries may pull in vulnerable versions transitively.

rack fixed: 2.2.19
Upgrade rack to 2.2.19
rack fixed: 3.1.17
Upgrade rack to 3.1.17
rack fixed: 3.2.2
Upgrade rack to 3.2.2
Verify Direct and Transitive Dependencies

Run the following command in your project directory to verify that all resolved dependencies use the patched release:

inspect dependencies for rack

How to Check if You Are Affected

To determine whether your application is affected by CVE-2025-61770, inspect your project dependencies for Rack:

inspect dependencies for rack

Analyze the terminal output to locate any version of Rack in your dependency tree. If any resolved version matches the vulnerable ranges listed in the table below (for example, versions earlier than 2.2.19), your application is affected.

Note: Verify declared build manifests and deployed runtime container environments.

Technical Details

Vulnerability Mechanism & Technical Analysis

This vulnerability is classified under CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption, where the product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource. In Rack, software state validation or input boundaries are circumvented during processing. Review the official source advisory statement below for specific affected components, classes, and reproduction details.

Source Advisory Statement

## Summary `Rack::Multipart::Parser` buffers the entire multipart **preamble** (bytes before the first boundary) in memory without any size limit. A client can send a large preamble followed by a valid boundary, causing significant memory use and potential process termination due to out-of-memory (OOM) conditions. ## Details While searching for the first boundary, the parser appends incoming data into a shared buffer (`@sbuf.concat(content)`) and scans for the boundary pattern: ```ruby @sbuf.scan_until(@body_regex) ``` If the boundary is not yet found, the parser continues buffering data indefinitely. There is no trimming or size cap on the preamble, allowing attackers to send arbitrary amounts of data before the first boundary. ## Impact Remote attackers can trigger large transient memory spikes by including a long preamble in multipart/form-data requests. The impact scales with allowed request sizes and concurrency, potentially causing worker crashes or severe slowdown due to garbage collection. ## Mitigation * **Upgrade:** Use a patched version of Rack that enforces a preamble size limit (e.g., 16 KiB) or discards preamble data entirely per [RFC 2046 § 5.1.1](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2046.html#section-5.1.1). * **Workarounds:** * Limit total request body size at the proxy or web server level. * Monitor memory and set per-process limits to prevent OOM conditions.

CVE-2025-61770 Affected Rack Versions

3 component(s)
Fixed Versions:
2.2.193.1.173.2.2
Product / Package Ecosystem Affected Versions Fixed Version
rack
RubyGems
< 2.2.19
2.2.19
rack
RubyGems
≥ 3.1
< 3.1.17
3.1.17
rack
RubyGems
≥ 3.2
< 3.2.2
3.2.2

References

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2025-61770?
CVE-2025-61770 is a security vulnerability in Rack involving Rack's unbounded multipart preamble buffering enables DoS (memory exhaustion) under CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption.
Which Rack versions are affected?
Affected versions include releases prior to 2.2.19, 3.1.17, 3.2.2 across affected packages: rack.
What version fixes CVE-2025-61770?
Upgrading to 2.2.19, 3.1.17, 3.2.2 (or the latest patched release for your respective branch) resolves the vulnerability.
Is rack affected?
Yes, rack is affected in releases prior to 2.2.19, 3.1.17, 3.2.2. Upgrade your dependency to 2.2.19, 3.1.17, 3.2.2 or later.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2025-61770?
CVE-2025-61770 has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (HIGH) with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.
What CWE is associated with CVE-2025-61770?
CVE-2025-61770 is classified under CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.).
How can I check RubyGems dependencies for CVE-2025-61770?
Run the dependency tree command: 'inspect dependencies for rack'. This command lists direct and transitive dependencies in your build configuration so you can verify if a vulnerable version is resolved.
Machine-readable OSV JSON OSV v1.5 Schema
Normalized schema output
{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-p543-xpfm-54cp",
  "modified" : "2025-10-13T15:29:37Z",
  "published" : "2025-10-07T17:26:16Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2025-61770" ],
  "summary" : "Rack's unbounded multipart preamble buffering enables DoS (memory exhaustion)",
  "details" : "## Summary\n\n`Rack::Multipart::Parser` buffers the entire multipart **preamble** (bytes before the first boundary) in memory without any size limit. A client can send a large preamble followed by a valid boundary, causing significant memory use and potential process termination due to out-of-memory (OOM) conditions.\n\n## Details\n\nWhile searching for the first boundary, the parser appends incoming data into a shared buffer (`@sbuf.concat(content)`) and scans for the boundary pattern:\n\n```ruby\n@sbuf.scan_until(@body_regex)\n```\n\nIf the boundary is not yet found, the parser continues buffering data indefinitely. There is no trimming or size cap on the preamble, allowing attackers to send arbitrary amounts of data before the first boundary.\n\n## Impact\n\nRemote attackers can trigger large transient memory spikes by including a long preamble in multipart/form-data requests. The impact scales with allowed request sizes and concurrency, potentially causing worker crashes or severe slowdown due to garbage collection.\n\n## Mitigation\n\n* **Upgrade:** Use a patched version of Rack that enforces a preamble size limit (e.g., 16 KiB) or discards preamble data entirely per [RFC 2046 § 5.1.1](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2046.html#section-5.1.1).\n* **Workarounds:**\n  * Limit total request body size at the proxy or web server level.\n  * Monitor memory and set per-process limits to prevent OOM conditions.",
  "severity" : [ {
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  } ],
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    },
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    "url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-61770"
  }, {
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    "url" : "https://github.com/rack/rack/commit/d869fed663b113b95a74ad53e1b5cae6ab31f29e"
  }, {
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    "url" : "https://github.com/rack/rack/commit/e08f78c656c9394d6737c022bde087e0f33336fd"
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    "url" : "https://github.com/rack/rack"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/rubysec/ruby-advisory-db/blob/master/gems/rack/CVE-2025-61770.yml"
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  "database_specific" : {
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    "github_reviewed_at" : "2025-10-07T17:26:16Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : "2025-10-07T15:16:02Z"
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}