CVE-2019-8320
A Directory Traversal issue was discovered in RubyGems 2.7.6 and later through 3.0.2. Before making new directories or touching files…
- 7.4HighCVSS base score
- 4.2%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 8.9% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
A Directory Traversal issue was discovered in RubyGems 2.7.6 and later through 3.0.2. Before making new directories or touching files (which now include path-checking code for symlinks), it would delete the target destination. If that destination was hidden behind a symlink, a malicious gem could delete arbitrary files on the user's machine, presuming the attacker could guess at paths. Given how frequently gem is run as sudo, and how predictable paths are on modern systems (/tmp, /usr, etc.), this could likely lead to data loss or an unusable system.
Timeline
ID reserved
By mitre
- 4 months later
· 4 months later
Published
- 5 years later
· 5 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.0 | High7.4 | CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 4.2% · top 8.9% of all CVEs (11 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.4.
Affected products
n/a
- affected n/a
Affected packages
From reviewed advisories of the GitHub Advisory Database.
- RubyGemsrubygems-updateGHSA-5x32-c9mf-49cc (opens in a new tab)
References
5
- https://hackerone.com/reports/317321 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- https://blog.rubygems.org/2019/03/05/security-advisories-2019-03.html (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMx_transferred
- RHSA-2019:1429 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_REDHATx_transferred
- openSUSE-SU-2019:1771 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_SUSEx_transferred
- [debian-lts-announce] 20200816 [SECURITY] [DLA 2330-1] jruby security update (opens in a new tab)mailing-listx_refsource_MLISTx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2019-0506 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-5x32-c9mf-49cc (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2019-8320)Record last updated .