RackApplication

CVE-2025-46727

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-05-07
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 2.2.14 / 3.0.16 or later.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Rack is a modular Ruby web server interface. Prior to versions 2.2.14, 3.0.16, and 3.1.14, `Rack::QueryParser` parses query strings and `application/x-www-form-urlencoded` bodies into Ruby data structures without imposing any limit on the number of parameters, allowing attackers to send requests with extremely large numbers of parameters. The vulnerability arises because `Rack::QueryParser` iterates over each `&`-separated key-value pair and adds it to a Hash without enforcing an upper bound on the total number of parameters. This allows an attacker to send a single request containing hundreds of thousands (or more) of parameters, which consumes excessive memory and CPU during parsing. An attacker can trigger denial of service by sending specifically crafted HTTP requests, which can cause memory exhaustion or pin CPU resources, stalling or crashing the Rack server. This results in full service disruption until the affected worker is restarted. Versions 2.2.14, 3.0.16, and 3.1.14 fix the issue. Some other mitigations are available. One may use middleware to enforce a maximum query string size or parameter count, or employ a reverse proxy (such as Nginx) to limit request sizes and reject oversized query strings or bodies. Limiting request body sizes and query string lengths at the web server or CDN level is an effective mitigation.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-400

A single request can consume unbounded CPU, memory, or connections, so a modest amount of malicious traffic exhausts the service. The result is denial of service for everyone else. Remediation is enforcing limits, quotas, and timeouts on what any one request can use.

General guidance for the uncontrolled resource consumption class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
RackApplication
Affected:< 2.2.14>= 3.0.0, < 3.0.16>= 3.1.0, < 3.1.14

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 2.2.14 / 3.0.16 / 3.1.14 or later
Fixed in 2.2.143.0.163.1.14
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

Rack 2.2.14 (for 2.x), 3.0.16 (for 3.0.x), or 3.1.14 (for 3.1.x) depending on your current major version

  1. Identify the currently installed Rack version by running `gem list rack` or checking your Gemfile.lock
  2. For Rack 2.x users: Upgrade to version 2.2.14 by running `bundle update rack` or specifying `gem 'rack', '~> 2.2'`, `gem 'rack', '= 2.2.14'` in your Gemfile
  3. For Rack 3.0.x users: Upgrade to version 3.0.16 by running `bundle update rack` or specifying `gem 'rack', '= 3.0.16'` in your Gemfile
  4. For Rack 3.1.x users: Upgrade to version 3.1.14 by running `bundle update rack` or specifying `gem 'rack', '= 3.1.14'` in your Gemfile
  5. Run `bundle install` to update dependencies
  6. Restart all Rack-based application servers (Puma, Unicorn, WEBrick, etc.) to load the new version
  7. As an additional defense-in-depth measure, configure a reverse proxy (Nginx, Apache) or web application firewall to limit query string length and request body size
  8. Verify the upgrade was successful by checking `Rack::VERSION` or running `ruby -e "require 'rack'; puts Rack::VERSION"`
Caveat Rack 3.x has breaking changes from 2.x; review the Rack 3 migration guide if upgrading from 2.x to 3.x

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,950. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-46727 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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