What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2008-2662

• Severity: critical (CVSS 10.0 v2.0)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 4.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2008-06-24 · updated 2026-06-16
• Weakness: CWE-189

Description

Multiple integer overflows in the rb_str_buf_append function in Ruby 1.8.4 and earlier, 1.8.5 before 1.8.5-p231, 1.8.6 before 1.8.6-p230, 1.8.7 before 1.8.7-p22, and 1.9.0 before 1.9.0-2 allow context-dependent attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service via unknown vectors that trigger memory corruption, a different issue than CVE-2008-2663, CVE-2008-2664, and CVE-2008-2725. NOTE: as of 20080624, there has been inconsistent usage of multiple CVE identifiers related to Ruby. This CVE description should be regarded as authoritative, although it is likely to change.

Affected products

• Canonical Ubuntu Linux: 6.06, 7.04, 7.10, 8.04
• Debian Linux: 4.0
• Ruby: through 1.8.4; from 1.8.5 (excl.) before 1.8.5.231; from 1.8.6 before 1.8.6.230; from 1.8.7 before 1.8.7.22; from 1.9.0 before 1.9.0.2 — fixed in 1.8.5.231, 1.8.6.230, 1.8.7.22, 1.9.0.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Ruby 1.8.5.231, 1.8.6.230, 1.8.7.22, 1.9.0.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• http://blog.phusion.nl/2008/06/23/ruby-186-p230187-broke-your-app-ruby-enterprise-edition-to-the-rescue/
• http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2008//Jun/msg00002.html
• http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2008-08/msg00006.html
• http://secunia.com/advisories/30802
• http://secunia.com/advisories/30831
• http://secunia.com/advisories/30867
• http://secunia.com/advisories/30875
• http://secunia.com/advisories/30894
• http://secunia.com/advisories/31062
• http://secunia.com/advisories/31181
• http://secunia.com/advisories/31256
• http://secunia.com/advisories/31687

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