Bug 294797 (CVE-2009-4214) – <dev-ruby/rails-2.3.5 XSS weakness in strip_tags (CVE-2009-4214)

• Product: Gentoo Security
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Hans de Graaff 2009-11-27 07:56:06 UTC]

From the rubyonrails-security list:

There is a weakness in the strip_tags function in ruby on rails.  Due to
a bug in the parsing code inside HTML::Tokenizer regarding non-printable
ascii characters, an attacker can include values which certain browsers
will then evaluate.

Versions Affected:  All versions prior to 2.3.4 or 2.2.s
Not affected:       Applications which do not use strip_tags
Fixed Versions:     2.3.5

Impact
------

Applications relying on strip_tags for XSS protection may be vulnerable
to attacks on Internet Explorer users.

Releases
--------

The 2.3.5 releases is available at the normal locations now.

Workarounds
-----------

Users using strip_tags can pass the resulting output to the regular
escaping functionality:

  <%= h(strip_tag(...)) %>


Patches
-------

To aid users who aren't able to upgrade immediately we have provided
patches for the two supported release series.  They are in git-am format
and consist of a single changeset updating the parser and providing an
additional unit test.

* 2-2-strip_tags.patch - Patch for 2.2 series
* 2-3-strip_tags.patch - Patch for 2.3 series

Please note that only the  2.2.x and 2.3.x series are supported at
present.  Users of earlier unsupported releases are advised to upgrade
at their earliest convenience.

Credits
-------
Thanks to Gabe da Silveira for reporting the vulnerability to us and
providing the fix.

[Comment 1 Hans de Graaff 2009-11-27 07:56:55 UTC]

Created attachment 211294 [details, diff]
Patch for Rails 2.2.x

[Comment 2 Hans de Graaff 2009-11-27 07:57:12 UTC]

Created attachment 211295 [details, diff]
Rails 2.3.x patch

[Comment 3 Hans de Graaff 2009-11-27 07:58:34 UTC]

As far as I can tell upstream has only released Rails 2.3.5. If we want to keep the 2.2.x series around we need to patch it ourselves, it seems like.

[Comment 4 Alex Legler (RETIRED) 2009-11-28 11:23:41 UTC]

Arches, please test and mark stable:

2.2 slot:
=dev-ruby/actionpack-2.2.3-r1
=dev-ruby/rails-2.2.3-r1
Target keywords : "amd64 ia64 ppc ppc64 sparc x86"

2.3 slot:
=dev-ruby/activesupport-2.3.5
=dev-ruby/actionpack-2.3.5
=dev-ruby/activeresource-2.3.5
=dev-ruby/actionmailer-2.3.5
=dev-ruby/activerecord-2.3.5
=dev-ruby/rails-2.3.5
Target keywords : "amd64 ia64 ppc ppc64 sparc x86"

[Comment 5 Alex Legler (RETIRED) 2009-11-30 09:26:12 UTC]

Please also stabilize dev-ruby/rack-1.0.1.

[Comment 6 Markus Meier 2009-11-30 10:45:51 UTC]

amd64/x86 stable

[Comment 7 Brent Baude (RETIRED) 2009-11-30 18:03:22 UTC]

ppc64 done

[Comment 8 Raúl Porcel (RETIRED) 2009-11-30 18:47:51 UTC]

ia64/sparc stable

[Comment 9 Stefan Behte (RETIRED) 2009-12-12 00:58:39 UTC]

CVE-2009-4214 (http://nvd.nist.gov/nvd.cfm?cvename=CVE-2009-4214):
  Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the strip_tags function
  in Ruby on Rails before 2.2.s, and 2.3.x before 2.3.5, allows remote
  attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via vectors
  involving non-printing ASCII characters, related to HTML::Tokenizer
  and actionpack/lib/action_controller/vendor/html-scanner/html/node.rb.

[Comment 10 Jeroen Roovers (RETIRED) 2009-12-19 14:26:00 UTC]

Stable for PPC.

[Comment 11 Alex Legler (RETIRED) 2009-12-19 14:29:06 UTC]

GLSA together with #200159, #237385, #247549, #276279, and #283396.
Draft alread filed, advisory will be sent tonight. 

[Comment 12 Alex Legler (RETIRED) 2009-12-20 12:12:05 UTC]

GLSA 200912-02