CVE-2016-0752

Exp

Directory traversal vulnerability in Action View in Ruby on Rails before 3.2.22.1, 4.0.x and 4.1.x before 4.1.14.1, 4.2.x before 4.2.5.1, and 5.x before 5.0.0.beta1.1 allows remote attackers to read arbitrary files by leveraging an application's unrestricted use of the render method and providing a .. (dot dot) in a pathname.

Published: 2016-02-16 Last update: 2026-04-22 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2016-0752 is rated Critical Active Threat (89.3/100): CVSS High severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 90.49%, 100th percentile). CISA KEV confirms active exploitation (added 2022-03-25) affecting Rails / Ruby on Rails. a weakness (CWE-22) Unauthenticated remote administrative access may be possible. The CISA remediation deadline has passed—treat as an emergency patch priority.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

CISA KEV Record for CVE-2016-0752

Name: Ruby on Rails Directory Traversal Vulnerability · CISA KEV detail

Exploit added: 2022-03-25

Action due: 2022-04-15

Required action: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2016-0752

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
40561 exploit_db edb 2016-10-17 Exploit-DB ↗
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2016-0752

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 2026-05-23 91.05% 90.49% -0.56%
2 2026-03-18 92.60% 91.05% -1.55%
3 2026-03-17 — 92.60% —

Full EPSS history (40 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2016-0752

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.9 3.6 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0
5.0 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 10.0 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2016-0752

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2016-0752

GHSA-xrr4-p6fq-hjg7 · Severity: high · Ecosystem: rubygems — Directory traversal vulnerability in Action View in Ruby on Rails

OS Trackers for CVE-2016-0752

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2016-0752 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (rails), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2016-0752
redhat high — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2016-0752
suse medium CVE-2016-0752 severity moderate: SUSE including 17 source package names (libcontainment-insomnia-0.1.1-0.9.4.19, libjansson4-2.2.1-0.9.11.6, …), 33 product×package rows across 9 product lines (SUSE Enterprise Storage 2.1, SUSE Lifecycle Management Server 1.3, … (9 product lines)): Fixed 33. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2016-0752/
ubuntu medium CVE-2016-0752 medium priority: Ubuntu including 10 source packages (rails, rails-4.0, …), 120 status rows across 12 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, precise, trusty, upstream, vivid, wily, xenial, yakkety, zesty): DNE 96, ignored 12, needs-triage 5, not-affected 5, released 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2016-0752

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2016-0752

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
rubyonrails rails < 3.2.22.1 cpe:2.3:a:rubyonrails:rails:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
rubyonrails rails >= 4.0.0, < 4.1.14.1 cpe:2.3:a:rubyonrails:rails:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
rubyonrails rails >= 4.2.0, < 4.2.5.1 cpe:2.3:a:rubyonrails:rails:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
rubyonrails rails 5.0.0 cpe:2.3:a:rubyonrails:rails:5.0.0:beta1:*:*:*:*:*:*
opensuse leap 42.1 cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:leap:42.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
opensuse opensuse 13.2 cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:opensuse:13.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
suse linux_enterprise_module_for_containers 12 cpe:2.3:o:suse:linux_enterprise_module_for_containers:12:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 8.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat software_collections 1.0 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:software_collections:1.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2016-0752

URL Tags
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2016-February/178044.html Permissions Required
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2016-February/178069.html Permissions Required
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-04/msg00053.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-updates/2016-02/msg00034.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-updates/2016-02/msg00043.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016-0296.html Third Party Advisory
http://www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3464 Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/01/25/13 Exploit Mailing List
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/81801 Broken Link Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1034816 Broken Link Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=ruby-security-ann/335P1DcLG00/JXcBnTtZEgAJ Broken Link
https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/40561/ Exploit Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2016-0752 US Government Resource
cvelogic Threat Intelligence