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🛡️ CVE-2023-38037 — activesupport

🟡 CVSS 5.5 — Medium ✅ No Known Exploit CWE-377 NVD
5.5
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

Active Support Possibly Discloses Locally Encrypted Files

There is a possible file disclosure of locally encrypted files in Active Support. This vulnerability has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2023-38037.

Versions Affected: >= 5.2.0 Not affected: < 5.2.0 Fixed Versions: 7.0.7.1, 6.1.7.5

# Impact

ActiveSupport::EncryptedFile writes contents that will be encrypted to a temporary file. The temporary file’s permissions are defaulted to the user’s current umask settings, meaning that it’s possible for other users on the same system to read the contents of the temporary file.

Attackers that have access to the file system could possibly read the contents of this temporary file while a user is editing it.

All users running an affected release should either upgrade or use one of the workarounds immediately.

# Releases

The fixed releases are available at the normal locations.

# Workarounds

To work around this issue, you can set your umask to be more restrictive like this:

```ruby

$ umask 0077

```

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached with local access to the system, attack complexity is high, an attacker needs low-level privileges on the target. A user must be tricked into taking some action. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality high, integrity low, availability low.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:L

  • Attack vector: Local — a local account, shell or session on the host is needed.
  • Attack complexity: High — the attacker first has to win a race, learn a secret or otherwise prepare the target.
  • Privileges required: Low — an ordinary user account is enough.
  • User interaction: Required — someone has to click, open or visit something.
  • Scope: Unchanged — the damage stays inside the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.
  • Integrity impact: Low — limited, and the attacker does not choose what is affected.
  • Availability impact: Low — limited, and the attacker does not choose what is affected.

Weakness class

CVE-2023-38037 is classified as CWE-377: Insecure Temporary File. Creating and using insecure temporary files can leave application and system data vulnerable to attack.

Affected software

CVE-2023-38037 is recorded against 2 packages.

  • activesupport (from 7.0.0 up to 7.0.7.1)
  • unknown

Timeline and source

Published on 23 August 2023 and last revised on 4 February 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from NVD.

References

nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
github.com (Web)
discuss.rubyonrails.org (Web)
github.com (Package)
github.com (Web)
github.com (Web)
security.netapp.com (Web)

Other advisories for this package

activesupport has other advisories on record. If you are patching this one, these are worth checking on the same host:

Same weakness in other software

These advisories are the same class of weakness (CWE-377: Insecure Temporary File) in other software:

CVE-2023-38037 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity Medium
CVSS Score 5.5
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:L
CWE CWE-377
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2023-08-23
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-02-04
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
activesupport 7.0.0 7.0.7.1
unknown — —

Similar Threats

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