Categories
CVE-2026-34230 medium CVSS 5.3

Vulnerability in rack (CVE-2026-34230)

Summary

Vulnerability in rack (CVE-2026-34230). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Exploitable via expanded_accept_encoding. Mitigation: upgrade to 3.2.6 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

Summary

Rack::Utils.select_best_encoding processes Accept-Encoding values with quadratic time complexity when the header contains many wildcard (*) entries. Because this method is used by Rack::Deflater to choose a response encoding, an unauthenticated attacker can send a single request with a crafted Accept-Encoding header and cause disproportionate CPU consumption on the compression middleware path.

This results in a denial of service condition for applications using Rack::Deflater.

Details

Rack::Utils.select_best_encoding expands parsed Accept-Encoding values into a list of candidate encodings. When an entry is *, the method computes the set of concrete encodings by subtracting the encodings already present in the request:

if m == "*"
  (available_encodings - accept_encoding.map(&:first)).each do |m2|
    expanded_accept_encoding << [m2, q, preference]
  end
else
  expanded_accept_encoding << [m, q, preference]
end

Because accept_encoding.map(&:first) is evaluated inside the loop, it is recomputed for each wildcard entry. If the request contains N wildcard entries, this produces repeated scans over the full parsed header and causes quadratic behavior.

After expansion, the method also performs additional work over expanded_accept_encoding, including per-entry deletion, which further increases the cost for large inputs.

Rack::Deflater invokes this method for each request when the middleware is enabled:

Utils.select…

Source: GitHub Security Advisories (Global) NVD GitHub Advisory

Auto-generated summary

Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.

A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-34230 has been found in rack.
Attackers can target a specific entry point like expanded_accept_encoding over the network to misuse the product.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. CVSS score: 5.3/10.
What to do: upgrade rack to 3.2.6 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "rack CVE-2026-34230" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2026-34230 (rack) — CWE-400 / CVSS v3 5.3
Attack vector: remote (network-reachable) / unauthenticated / no user interaction
Attack surface: expanded_accept_encoding / Accept
Patched: 3.2.6 — apply immediately
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.

❓ What is the problem

A vulnerability (CWE-400) exists in rack. Attackers reach the vulnerable code path via expanded_accept_encoding without authentication.

📍 Affected scope

Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of rack. Attack surface: expanded_accept_encoding / Accept.

🔥 Severity

Severity: Medium (CVSS 5.3/10). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.

🔧 How to fix

Update to 3.2.6.

🛡️ Workaround

Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.

🔍 Detection

Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'rack' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.

Response actions

Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order

  1. 1
    Identify exposure identify
    grep -r 'rack' . | grep -v node_modules

    リポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で rack を grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。

  2. 2
    Apply patch patch
    Upgrade rack to 3.2.6

    ステージング環境で 3.2.6 に上げて回帰テスト → 本番反映。回帰テストはアプリの主要ハッピーパスを含めること。

  3. 3
    Post-deployment verification verify
    Confirm patched version is live in production

    パッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。

Affected packages

rubygems rack
[{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"3.2.0"},{"fixed":"3.2.6"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

References

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