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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.0

CVE-2009-1904 json

The BigDecimal library in Ruby 1.8.6 before p369 and 1.8.7 before p173 allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (app…

published 2009-06-11 17 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2009-1899

cvss
5.0
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
12.8%
EPSS 12.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 96%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The BigDecimal library in Ruby 1.8.6 before p369 and 1.8.7 before p173 allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) via a string argument that represents a large number, as demonstrated by an attempted conversion to the Float data type.

Patch / fix

  • ruby RHEL 4 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3
  • ruby RHEL 5 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7
  • irb RHEL 4 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3
  • ruby-ri RHEL 5 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7
  • ruby-irb RHEL 5 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7
  • ruby-libs RHEL 4 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3
  • ruby-libs RHEL 5 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7
  • ruby-mode RHEL 4 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3

red hat advisories RHSA-2009:1140

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2009-1904 updated cvss 5.0

ruby: DoS vulnerability in BigDecimal

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server) ruby 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-ri 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-irb 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-libs 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-mode 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-rdoc 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 4 irb 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby-libs 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby-mode 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby-tcltk 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) ruby 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-ri 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-irb 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-libs 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-mode 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-rdoc 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop version 4 irb 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby-libs 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby-mode 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby-tcltk 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop Workstation (v. 5 client) ruby 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-ri 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-irb 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-libs 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-mode 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, ruby-rdoc 1.8.5-5.el5_3.7, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 4 irb 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby-libs 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby-mode 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby-tcltk 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3
    +1 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 4 irb 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby-libs 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby-mode 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3, ruby-tcltk 1.8.1-7.el4_8.3
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1140

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

12.78% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 96% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • redmine.ruby-lang.org http://redmine.ruby-lang.org/issues/show/794 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.