Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
A vulnerable Rails HTML sanitization library can burn excessive CPU while processing crafted SVG attributes. For exposed applications, this can degrade or interrupt service availability. The published fix is rails-html-sanitizer 1.4.4.
Executive priority
Prioritize remediation for internet-facing applications that accept rich text, comments, profiles, uploads, or other user-supplied HTML. The issue affects availability rather than data theft, but outage risk can be material for customer-facing services.
Technical view
CVE-2022-23517 is CWE-1333 inefficient regular expression complexity in rails-html-sanitizer before 1.4.4. Certain configurations use a regex susceptible to excessive backtracking while sanitizing SVG attributes, causing CPU resource consumption and denial of service.
Likely exposure
Rails or Ruby applications using rails-html-sanitizer below 1.4.4 in configurations that sanitize SVG attributes from untrusted HTML. Exposure is most relevant where public users can submit content that is sanitized during request handling.
Exploitation context
The CVSS vector indicates remote, unauthenticated, low-complexity availability impact. The source bundle does not show CISA KEV listing or other evidence of active exploitation. Practical exploitability depends on application sanitization paths and accepted input.
Researcher notes
Focus validation on reachable sanitization flows, not just dependency presence. The vulnerability is tied to certain configurations and SVG attribute handling. Avoid assuming every Rails application is exploitable without confirming untrusted input reaches rails-html-sanitizer.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade rails-html-sanitizer to version 1.4.4 or later.
- Review dependency lockfiles and transitive Rails dependencies for vulnerable versions.
- Check vendor or distribution advisories for packaged Ruby library updates.
- Reduce exposure of public HTML/SVG submission paths until upgraded.
Validation and detection
- Confirm deployed rails-html-sanitizer versions are 1.4.4 or later.
- Identify routes that sanitize user-controlled HTML or SVG content.
- Review production CPU saturation logs around HTML sanitization endpoints.
- Verify package updates are present in runtime images, not only source manifests.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-1333: Exact CWE lookup
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Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2022-23517 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- High
- CVSS
- 7.5 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H3.93.6Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
7.5HighVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://github.com/rails/rails-html-sanitizer/security/advisories/GHSA-5x79-w82f-gw8wCVE reference · x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/rails/rails-html-sanitizer/commit/56c61c0cebd1e493e8ad7bca2a0191609a4a6979CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://hackerone.com/reports/1684163CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/09/msg00012.htmlCVE reference
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2024/09/msg00045.htmlCVE reference
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity
Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.