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Fencer Intel
medium 5.0

CVE-2015-3900 json

RubyGems vulnerable to DNS hijack attack

published 2015-06-24 11 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-wp3j-rvfp-624h , EUVD-2022-5611

cvss
5.0
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
8.9%
EPSS 8.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 95%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

RubyGems 2.0.x before 2.0.16, 2.2.x before 2.2.4, and 2.4.x before 2.4.7 does not validate the hostname when fetching gems or making API requests, which allows remote attackers to redirect requests to arbitrary domains via a crafted DNS SRV record, aka a "DNS hijack attack."

Patch / fix

  • rubygems rubygems-update 2.0.16, 2.2.4, 2.4.7
  • jruby Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1.7.20.1-2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2015-3900

  • rh-ruby22-ruby RHEL 2 SOFTWARE_COLLECTIONS 2.2.2-12.el6
  • rh-ruby22-ruby RHEL 2 SOFTWARE_COLLECTIONS 2.2.2-12.el7
  • rh-ruby22-ruby-irb RHEL 2 SOFTWARE_COLLECTIONS 2.2.2-12.el6
  • rh-ruby22-ruby-irb RHEL 2 SOFTWARE_COLLECTIONS 2.2.2-12.el7
  • rh-ruby22-rubygems RHEL 2 SOFTWARE_COLLECTIONS 2.4.5-12.el6
  • rh-ruby22-rubygems RHEL 2 SOFTWARE_COLLECTIONS 2.4.5-12.el7
  • rh-ruby22-ruby-libs RHEL 2 SOFTWARE_COLLECTIONS 2.2.2-12.el6
  • rh-ruby22-ruby-libs RHEL 2 SOFTWARE_COLLECTIONS 2.2.2-12.el7

red hat advisories RHSA-2015:1657

  • ruby2.1 SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES for SAP 12 SP1, SLES for Raspberry Pi 12 SP2 +6 more 2.1.9-15.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2017:1067-1

  • ruby2.3 openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.3.1-1.6
  • ruby2.2 openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.2.5-1.5

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10090-1openSUSE-SU-2024:10481-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2015-3900 updated cvss 7.9

rubygems: DNS hijacking vulnerability in api_endpoint()

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 ruby, ruby-irb, rubygems, ruby-libs, ruby-tcltk, rubygem-json, +6 more Red Hat Software Collections ruby200-ruby, ruby200-ruby-irb, ruby200-rubygems, ruby200-ruby-libs, ruby200-ruby-tcltk, ruby200-rubygem-json, +6 more
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 6) rh-ruby22-ruby 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-ruby-irb 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-rubygems 2.4.5-12.el6, rh-ruby22-ruby-libs 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-ruby-tcltk 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-rubygem-json 1.8.1-12.el6, +8 more Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) rh-ruby22-ruby 2.2.2-12.el7, rh-ruby22-ruby-irb 2.2.2-12.el7, rh-ruby22-rubygems 2.4.5-12.el7, rh-ruby22-ruby-libs 2.2.2-12.el7, rh-ruby22-ruby-tcltk 2.2.2-12.el7, rh-ruby22-rubygem-json 1.8.1-12.el7, +8 more Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server EUS (v. 6.5) rh-ruby22-ruby 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-ruby-irb 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-rubygems 2.4.5-12.el6, rh-ruby22-ruby-libs 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-ruby-tcltk 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-rubygem-json 1.8.1-12.el6, +8 more Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server EUS (v. 6.6) rh-ruby22-ruby 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-ruby-irb 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-rubygems 2.4.5-12.el6, rh-ruby22-ruby-libs 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-ruby-tcltk 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-rubygem-json 1.8.1-12.el6, +8 more Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server EUS (v. 7.1) rh-ruby22-ruby 2.2.2-12.el7, rh-ruby22-ruby-irb 2.2.2-12.el7, rh-ruby22-rubygems 2.4.5-12.el7, rh-ruby22-ruby-libs 2.2.2-12.el7, rh-ruby22-ruby-tcltk 2.2.2-12.el7, rh-ruby22-rubygem-json 1.8.1-12.el7, +8 more Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 6) rh-ruby22-ruby 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-ruby-irb 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-rubygems 2.4.5-12.el6, rh-ruby22-ruby-libs 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-ruby-tcltk 2.2.2-12.el6, rh-ruby22-rubygem-json 1.8.1-12.el6, +8 more
    +1 more products
    Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) rh-ruby22-ruby 2.2.2-12.el7, rh-ruby22-ruby-irb 2.2.2-12.el7, rh-ruby22-rubygems 2.4.5-12.el7, rh-ruby22-ruby-libs 2.2.2-12.el7, rh-ruby22-ruby-tcltk 2.2.2-12.el7, rh-ruby22-rubygem-json 1.8.1-12.el7, +8 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2015:1657
  • Red Hat CloudForms Management Engine 5 rubygems Red Hat OpenStack Foreman rubygems Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 ruby Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 ruby, ruby-ri, ruby-irb, rubygems, ruby-libs, ruby-rdoc, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 5 (Icehouse) rubygems Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 rubygems
    +4 more products
    Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise 2 rubygems Red Hat Satellite 6 rubygems Red Hat Software Collections ruby193-ruby, ruby193-ruby-irb, ruby193-rubygems, ruby193-ruby-libs, ruby193-ruby-tcltk, ruby193-rubygem-json, +5 more Red Hat Subscription Asset Manager ruby193-ruby
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

8.87% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 95% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
rubygems rubygems-update
>=2.0.0, <2.0.16
>=2.2.0, <2.2.4
>=2.4.0, <2.4.7
2.0.16
2.2.4
2.4.7

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-254 7PK - Security Features
  • CWE-350 Reliance on Reverse DNS Resolution for a Security-Critical Action

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.