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Fencer Vulns
high 7.5

CVE-2016-7798 json

OpenSSL gem for Ruby using inadequate encryption strength

published 2017-01-30 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-6h88-qjpv-p32m , EUVD-2017-0176

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
3.2%
EPSS 3.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 88%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The openssl gem for Ruby uses the same initialization vector (IV) in GCM Mode (aes-*-gcm) when the IV is set before the key, which makes it easier for context-dependent attackers to bypass the encryption protection mechanism.

Patch / fix

  • rubygems openssl 2.0.0
  • ruby-lang openssl 2.0.0
  • ruby-encryptor Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 3.0.0-1
  • ruby-attr-encrypted Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 3.0.1-2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2016-7798

  • ruby2.0 Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 2.0.0.484-1ubuntu2.4
  • ruby2.3 Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 2.3.1-2~16.04.2
  • ruby1.9.1 Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 1.9.3.484-2ubuntu1.3

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2016-7798

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • ruby2.1 SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES for SAP 12 SP3 +14 more 2.1.9-19.3.2
  • yast2-ruby-bindings SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES 12 SP2-LTSS, SLES 12 SP2-BCL +1 more 3.1.53-9.8.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2020:1570-1

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-2016-7798 updated cvss 3.7

ruby: IV Reuse in GCM Mode

  • Red Hat CloudForms Management Engine 5 ruby-200-ruby, rh-ruby22-ruby Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 ruby Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 ruby, ruby-ri, ruby-irb, ruby-libs, ruby-rdoc, ruby-tcltk Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 ruby, ruby-irb, rubygems, ruby-libs, ruby-tcltk, rubygem-json, +6 more Red Hat Software Collections ruby200-ruby, rh-ruby22-ruby, rh-ruby23-ruby, ruby200-ruby-irb, ruby200-rubygems, ruby200-ruby-libs, +36 more
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Will not fix”

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

3.17% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 88% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/ruby/openssl/issues/49 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
GitHub 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
rubygems openssl
<2.0.0
2.0.0

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-326 Inadequate Encryption Strength

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.