CVE-2021-32740: Addressable Denial of Service Vulnerability
HIGHCVE-2021-32740 is a HIGH (CVSS 7.5) denial of service vulnerability (CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) affecting Addressable libraries in the RubyGems ecosystem. The issue involves regular expression denial of service in addressable templates. Remediation is available by upgrading affected packages to version 2.8.0.
CVE-2021-32740 at a Glance
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).
How to Fix CVE-2021-32740
To remediate this vulnerability, upgrade all affected Addressable dependencies to a patched release. Both direct and transitive dependencies should be checked, as frameworks or security libraries may pull in vulnerable versions transitively.
Upgrade addressable to 2.8.0
Run the following command in your project directory to verify that all resolved dependencies use the patched release:
inspect dependencies for addressable
How to Check if You Are Affected
To determine whether your application is affected by CVE-2021-32740, inspect your project dependencies for Addressable:
inspect dependencies for addressable
Analyze the terminal output to locate any version of Addressable in your dependency tree. If any resolved version matches the vulnerable ranges listed in the table below (for example, versions earlier than 2.8.0), 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 Addressable, 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
CVE-2021-32740 Affected Addressable Versions
1 component(s)| Product / Package | Ecosystem | Affected Versions | Fixed Version |
|---|---|---|---|
|
addressable
|
RubyGems |
≥ 2.3.0
< 2.8.0
|
2.8.0
|
References
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2021-32740?
Which Addressable versions are affected?
What version fixes CVE-2021-32740?
Is addressable affected?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2021-32740?
What CWE is associated with CVE-2021-32740?
How can I check RubyGems dependencies for CVE-2021-32740?
Machine-readable OSV JSON
OSV v1.5 Schema
{
"schema_version" : "1.4.0",
"id" : "GHSA-jxhc-q857-3j6g",
"modified" : "2026-04-06T23:12:46Z",
"published" : "2021-07-12T16:58:33Z",
"aliases" : [ "CVE-2021-32740" ],
"summary" : "Regular Expression Denial of Service in Addressable templates",
"details" : "### Impact\n\nWithin the URI template implementation in Addressable, a maliciously crafted template may result in uncontrolled resource consumption, leading to denial of service when matched against a URI. In typical usage, templates would not normally be read from untrusted user input, but nonetheless, no previous security advisory for Addressable has cautioned against doing this. Users of the parsing capabilities in Addressable but not the URI template capabilities are unaffected.\n\n### Patches\n\nThe vulnerability was introduced in version 2.3.0 (previously yanked) and has been present in all subsequent versions up to, and including, 2.7.0. It is fixed in version 2.8.0.\n\n### Workarounds\n\nThe vulnerability can be avoided by only creating Template objects from trusted sources that have been validated not to produce catastrophic backtracking.\n\n### References\n\n- https://owasp.org/www-community/attacks/Regular_expression_Denial_of_Service_-_ReDoS\n- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/1333.html\n- https://www.regular-expressions.info/catastrophic.html\n\n### For more information\nIf you have any questions or comments about this advisory:\n* [Open an issue](https://github.com/sporkmonger/addressable/issues)",
"severity" : [ {
"type" : "CVSS_V3",
"score" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"
} ],
"affected" : [ {
"package" : {
"ecosystem" : "RubyGems",
"name" : "addressable"
},
"ranges" : [ {
"type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
"events" : [ {
"introduced" : "2.3.0"
}, {
"fixed" : "2.8.0"
} ]
} ],
"database_specific" : {
"last_known_affected_version_range" : "<= 2.7.0"
}
} ],
"references" : [ {
"type" : "WEB",
"url" : "https://github.com/sporkmonger/addressable/security/advisories/GHSA-jxhc-q857-3j6g"
}, {
"type" : "ADVISORY",
"url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-32740"
}, {
"type" : "WEB",
"url" : "https://github.com/sporkmonger/addressable/commit/0d8a3127e35886ce9284810a7f2438bff6b43cbc"
}, {
"type" : "WEB",
"url" : "https://github.com/sporkmonger/addressable/commit/89c76130ce255c601f642a018cb5fb5a80e679a7"
}, {
"type" : "WEB",
"url" : "https://github.com/sporkmonger/addressable/commit/92685096b1f7235ed8986c03ce30a24972eed848#diff-fb36d3dc67e6565ffde17e666a98697f48e76dac38fabf1bb9e97cdf3b583d76"
}, {
"type" : "ADVISORY",
"url" : "https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-jxhc-q857-3j6g"
}, {
"type" : "WEB",
"url" : "https://github.com/rubysec/ruby-advisory-db/blob/master/gems/addressable/CVE-2021-32740.yml"
}, {
"type" : "PACKAGE",
"url" : "https://github.com/sporkmonger/addressable"
}, {
"type" : "WEB",
"url" : "https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/SDFQM2NHNAZ3NNUQZEJTYECYZYXV4UDS"
}, {
"type" : "WEB",
"url" : "https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/WYPVOOQU7UB277UUERJMCNQLRCXRCIQ5"
} ],
"database_specific" : {
"cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-1333", "CWE-400" ],
"severity" : "HIGH",
"github_reviewed" : true,
"github_reviewed_at" : "2021-07-06T15:25:32Z",
"nvd_published_at" : "2021-07-06T15:15:00Z"
}
}