Summary Rack::QueryParser parses query strings and application/x-www-form-urlencoded bodies into Ruby data structures without imposing any limit on the number of parameters, allowing attackers to send requests with extremely large numbers of parameters. Details The vulnerability arises because Rack::QueryParser iterates over each &-separated key-value pair and adds it to a Hash without enforcing an upper bound on the total number of parameters. This allows an attacker to send a single request containing hundreds of thousands (or more) of parameters, which consumes excessive memory and CPU during parsing. Impact An attacker can trigger denial of service by sending specifically crafted HTTP requests, which can cause memory exhaustion or pin CPU resources, stalling or crashing the Rack server. This results in full service disruption until the affected worker is restarted.
This kind of vulnerability highlights the importance of input validation at every level. For anyone looking to mitigate the issue while waiting for upstream patches, I recommend using middleware or web server settings to limit parameter count. https://speedstarsgame.io
