Nokogiri 1.13.8, 1.13.9 fails to check the return value from xmlTextReaderExpand in the method Nokogiri::XML::Reader#attribute_hash. This can lead to a null pointer exception when invalid markup is being parsed.
For applications using XML::Reader to parse untrusted inputs, this may potentially be a vector for a denial of service attack.
Upgrade to Nokogiri >= 1.13.10.
Users may be able to search their code for calls to either XML::Reader#attributes or XML::Reader#attribute_hash to determine if they are affected.
The Nokogiri maintainers have evaluated this as High Severity 7.5 (CVSS3.1).
This vulnerability was responsibly reported by @davidwilemski.
{
"nvd_published_at": "2022-12-08T04:15:00Z",
"severity": "HIGH",
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-252",
"CWE-476"
],
"github_reviewed": true,
"github_reviewed_at": "2022-12-08T03:03:33Z"
}