CVE-2019-5418: Rails Ruby on Rails Path Traversal Vulnerability

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities

Name

Rails Ruby on Rails Path Traversal Vulnerability

Vendor

Rails

Product

Ruby on Rails

Added to the catalog

2025-07-07

Due date for US federal agencies

2025-07-28

Weaknesses

CWE-22

Catalog version

2026.10.30

Rails Ruby on Rails contains a path traversal vulnerability in Action View. Specially crafted accept headers in combination with calls to `render file:` can cause arbitrary files on the target server to be rendered, disclosing the file contents.

Required action (CISA)

Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

Ransomware use: CISA does not mark known use of this vulnerability in ransomware campaigns.

Links in CISA's notes

• https://web.archive.org/web/20190313201629/https://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2019/3/13/Rails-4-2-5-1-5-1-6-2-have-been-released/
• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-5418

Read on 2026-11-02T23:39:54.475Z under licence cisa-kev-cc0@b0067899 from https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/feeds/known_exploited_vulnerabilities.json

NVD analysis

Status

Analyzed

Published

2019-03-27T14:29:01.533

Last modified

2026-06-17T02:37:39.103

Weaknesses

CWE-22, NVD-CWE-noinfo

There is a File Content Disclosure vulnerability in Action View <5.2.2.1, <5.1.6.2, <5.0.7.2, <4.2.11.1 and v3 where specially crafted accept headers can cause contents of arbitrary files on the target system's filesystem to be exposed.

References

• http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-05/msg00011.html (Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
• http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/152178/Rails-5.2.1-Arbitrary-File-Content-Disclosure.html (Exploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry)
• http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/03/22/1 (Mailing List, Mitigation, Patch, Third Party Advisory)
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:0796 (Third Party Advisory)
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:1147 (Third Party Advisory)
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:1149 (Third Party Advisory)
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:1289 (Third Party Advisory)
• https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/rubyonrails-security/pFRKI96Sm8Q (Permissions Required)
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/03/msg00042.html (Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/Y43636TH4D6T46IC6N2RQVJTRFJAAYGA/ (Third Party Advisory)
• https://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2019/3/13/Rails-4-2-5-1-5-1-6-2-have-been-released/ (Broken Link, Patch, Vendor Advisory)
• https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/46585/ (Exploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry)
• http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-05/msg00011.html (Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
• http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/152178/Rails-5.2.1-Arbitrary-File-Content-Disclosure.html (Exploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry)
• http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/03/22/1 (Mailing List, Mitigation, Patch, Third Party Advisory)
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:0796 (Third Party Advisory)
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:1147 (Third Party Advisory)
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:1149 (Third Party Advisory)
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:1289 (Third Party Advisory)
• https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/rubyonrails-security/pFRKI96Sm8Q (Permissions Required)
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/03/msg00042.html (Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/Y43636TH4D6T46IC6N2RQVJTRFJAAYGA/ (Third Party Advisory)
• https://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2019/3/13/Rails-4-2-5-1-5-1-6-2-have-been-released/ (Broken Link, Patch, Vendor Advisory)
• https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/46585/ (Exploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry)
• https://web.archive.org/web/20190313201629/https://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2019/3/13/Rails-4-2-5-1-5-1-6-2-have-been-released/ (Patch, Vendor Advisory)
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2019-5418 (US Government Resource)

This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.

Read on 2026-11-02T23:41:43.468Z under licence nvd-api-terms-of-use@ff2a5288 from https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cves/2.0?cveId=CVE-2019-5418

CVE record

Assigner

hackerone

State

PUBLISHED

Published

2019-03-27T13:38:58.000Z

Updated

2025-10-21T23:45:41.038Z

Problem types

Path Traversal (CWE-22)

There is a File Content Disclosure vulnerability in Action View <5.2.2.1, <5.1.6.2, <5.0.7.2, <4.2.11.1 and v3 where specially crafted accept headers can cause contents of arbitrary files on the target system's filesystem to be exposed.

References

• 46585
• http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/152178/Rails-5.2.1-Arbitrary-File-Content-Disclosure.html
• [oss-security] 20190322 [CVE-2019-5418] Amendment: Possible Remote Code Execution Exploit in Action View
• https://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2019/3/13/Rails-4-2-5-1-5-1-6-2-have-been-released/
• https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/rubyonrails-security/pFRKI96Sm8Q
• [debian-lts-announce] 20190331 [SECURITY] [DLA 1739-1] rails security update
• RHSA-2019:0796
• openSUSE-SU-2019:1344
• FEDORA-2019-1cfe24db5c
• RHSA-2019:1149
• RHSA-2019:1147
• RHSA-2019:1289

Read on 2026-11-03T01:02:06.444Z under licence cve-terms-of-use@81bfa2f3 from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/main/cves/2019/5xxx/CVE-2019-5418.json

Also known as / affected packages

Defensive techniques (MITRE D3FEND)

D3FEND maps these defensive techniques to the weakness (CWE) that NVD lists for this CVE, through the digital artifacts the weakness affects. D3FEND does not say they stop this vulnerability.

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