CVE-2026-33176

Active Support is a toolkit of support libraries and Ruby core extensions extracted from the Rails framework. Prior to versions 8.1.2.1, 8.0.4.1, and 7.2.3.1, Active Support number helpers accept strings containing scientific notation (e.g. 1e10000), which BigDecimal expands into extremely large decimal representations. This can cause excessive memory allocation and CPU consumption when the expanded number is formatted, possibly resulting in a DoS vulnerability. Versions 8.1.2.1, 8.0.4.1, and 7.2.3.1 contain a patch.

Weakness

The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:

• The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.

• The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/147.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/227.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/492.html

References

• https://github.com/rails/rails/commit/19dbab51ca086a657bb86458042bc44314916bcb
• https://github.com/rails/rails/commit/ebd6be18120d1136511eb516338e27af25ac0a1a
• https://github.com/rails/rails/commit/ee2c59e730e5b8faed502cd2c573109df093f856
• https://github.com/rails/rails/releases/tag/v7.2.3.1
• https://github.com/rails/rails/releases/tag/v8.0.4.1
• https://github.com/rails/rails/releases/tag/v8.1.2.1
• https://github.com/rails/rails/security/advisories/GHSA-2j26-frm8-cmj9