SQL injection in Ruby on Rails

Published: 2013-01-30 | Updated: 2025-09-30

Risk	Medium
Patch available	YES
Number of vulnerabilities	1
CVE-ID	CVE-2013-0333
CWE-ID	CWE-89
Exploitation vector	Network
Public exploit	Vulnerability #1 is being exploited in the wild.
Vulnerable software	Ruby on Rails Universal components / Libraries / Scripting languages
Vendor	Rails

Security Bulletin

This security bulletin contains one medium risk vulnerability.

1) SQL injection

EUVDB-ID: #VU116187

Risk: Medium

CVSSv4.0: 6.9 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:A/U:Green]

CVE-ID: CVE-2013-0333

CWE-ID: CWE-89 - Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection')

Exploit availability: Yes

Description

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary SQL queries in database.

The vulnerability exists due to lib/active_support/json/backends/yaml.rb in Ruby on Rails does not properly convert JSON data to YAML data for processing by a YAML parser. A remote attacker can execute arbitrary code, conduct SQL injection attacks, or bypass authentication via crafted data that triggers unsafe decoding.

Mitigation

Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Ruby on Rails: 2.3.0 - 3.0.19

CPE2.3

External links

Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

Yes. This vulnerability can be exploited by a remote non-authenticated attacker via the Internet.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

Yes. This vulnerability is being exploited in the wild.