Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
This vulnerability can let an unauthenticated remote request tie up a vulnerable Ruby on Rails application by forcing expensive regular expression processing. The business impact is availability: affected services may consume excessive CPU and memory and become slow or unavailable.
Executive priority
Treat as a high-priority availability risk for public Rails services. It is not described as data theft or code execution, but low-complexity remote denial of service can still cause customer-facing outages.
Technical view
CVE-2023-22792 is a ReDoS issue in Rails Action Dispatch before 6.0.6.1, 6.1.7.1, and 7.0.4.1. Specially crafted cookies combined with a crafted X_FORWARDED_HOST header can trigger catastrophic backtracking, causing high CPU and memory usage.
Likely exposure
Internet-facing Rails applications are the main concern, especially those accepting requests through proxies that pass X_FORWARDED_HOST. Exposure depends on deployed Action Pack/Action Dispatch versions and whether affected Rails branches remain in use.
Exploitation context
The source bundle does not show CISA KEV listing or cited evidence of active exploitation. The CVSS vector indicates network access, low complexity, no privileges, no user interaction, and high availability impact.
Researcher notes
Evidence supports ReDoS via cookies and X_FORWARDED_HOST in Action Dispatch. The bundle names patched Rails release thresholds and Debian and NetApp advisories. It does not provide proof of exploitation, detailed affected NetApp products, or specific workaround text.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade Rails/Action Pack to 6.0.6.1, 6.1.7.1, 7.0.4.1, or later.
- Apply Debian DSA-5372 updates where Rails packages come from Debian.
- Check the Rails advisory for documented workarounds if immediate upgrade is not possible.
- Review NetApp advisory applicability for any affected NetApp-managed products or dependencies.
- Prioritize production internet-facing Rails applications before internal-only services.
Validation and detection
- Inventory Rails applications and record Action Pack or Rails versions from dependency lockfiles.
- Flag versions below 6.0.6.1, 6.1.7.1, or 7.0.4.1.
- Confirm patched versions are deployed, not only merged into source control.
- Review proxy behavior for forwarding of X_FORWARDED_HOST to Rails applications.
- Check monitoring for unexplained CPU or memory spikes on Rails web processes.
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-400: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2023-22792 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://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/cve-2023-22792-possible-redos-based-dos-vulnerability-in-action-dispatch/82115CVE reference
- DSA-5372CVE reference · vendor-advisory
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20240202-0007/CVE 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.
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.