Heap-based buffer overflow in Ruby 1.8, 1.9 before 1.9.3-p484, 2.0 before 2.0.0-p353, 2.1 before 2.1.0 preview2, and trunk before revision 43780 allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (segmentation fault) and possibly execute arbitrary code via a string that is converted to a floating point value, as demonstrated using (1) the to_f method or (2) JSON.parse.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2013-4164 is rated High Exploit Risk (81.6/100): CVSS Medium severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 34.97%, 98th percentile). Core evidence: 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +23.01% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Mandatory action: Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
| EDB-ID | Source | Kind | Published | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | nvd_ref | exploit_tag | Exploit-DB ↗ |
EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).
| # | Date | Old EPSS score | New EPSS score | Delta (New - Old) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-06-15 | 11.96% | 34.97% | +23.01% |
| 2 | 2026-03-04 | 22.56% | 11.96% | -10.60% |
| 3 | 2026-03-01 | — | 22.56% | — |
Full EPSS history (48 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.8 | 2.0 | MEDIUM |
|
8.6 | 6.4 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
gentoo
|
normal | CVE-2013-4164: 1 GLSA(s) (201412-27), 1 atom(s) (dev-lang/ruby); latest impact normal. | https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2013-4164 |
redhat
|
critical | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2013-4164 |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2013-4164 medium priority: Ubuntu including 4 source packages (ruby1.8, ruby1.9, ruby1.9.1, ruby2.0), 28 status rows across 7 suites (lucid, precise, quantal, raring, saucy, trusty, upstream): released 12, DNE 10, ignored 4, needs-triage 2. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2013-4164 |
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| ruby-lang | ruby | 1.8 | cpe:2.3:a:ruby-lang:ruby:1.8:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| ruby-lang | ruby | 1.9 | cpe:2.3:a:ruby-lang:ruby:1.9:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| ruby-lang | ruby | 1.9.1 | cpe:2.3:a:ruby-lang:ruby:1.9.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| ruby-lang | ruby | 1.9.2 | cpe:2.3:a:ruby-lang:ruby:1.9.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| ruby-lang | ruby | 1.9.3 | cpe:2.3:a:ruby-lang:ruby:1.9.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| ruby-lang | ruby | 2.0.0 | cpe:2.3:a:ruby-lang:ruby:2.0.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| ruby-lang | ruby | 2.1 | cpe:2.3:a:ruby-lang:ruby:2.1:preview1:*:*:*:*:*:* |