CVE-2015-7576: Timing Attack in Ruby on Rails Actionpack

The primary impact of CVE-2015-7576 is the potential for unauthorized access to protected resources within a Ruby on Rails application. An attacker can exploit this timing vulnerability to deduce valid credentials by repeatedly attempting authentication and measuring the response times. While the CVSS score is LOW, successful exploitation could lead to complete compromise of the application and its data, particularly if sensitive information is accessible via Basic Authentication. This vulnerability shares similarities with other timing attacks targeting authentication mechanisms, highlighting the importance of constant-time algorithms in security-critical code.

1. Publicada2017-10-24
2. Modificada2024-11-29
3. EPSS actualizado2026-04-02

The recommended mitigation for CVE-2015-7576 is to upgrade to Ruby on Rails version 3.2.22.1 or later. If upgrading is not immediately feasible, consider disabling HTTP Basic Authentication entirely and implementing a more robust authentication mechanism. As a temporary workaround, implement rate limiting on authentication attempts to make timing attacks more difficult. Review your application's authentication logic to ensure it adheres to constant-time principles. After upgrading, confirm the fix by attempting a timing attack against the authentication endpoint and verifying that response times remain consistent regardless of the provided credentials.