CVE-2026-79771 — Vulnerability in nokogiri — CVE Details

## Summary Nokogiri's `Nokogiri::XSLT::Stylesheet#transform` leaks a small heap allocation when passed a Ruby string parameter containing a null byte. For applications that pass attacker-controlled input through `XSLT.transform` parameters, this may be a vector for a denial of service attack against long-running processes. ## Mitigation Upgrade to Nokogiri `>= 1.19.3`. Users may also be able to mitigate this issue without upgrading by validating untrusted transform parameters before passing them to `Nokogiri::XSLT::Stylesheet#transform`. ## Severity The Nokogiri maintainers have evaluated this as **Moderate Severity**, CVSS 5.3. Each leaked allocation is approximately 24–32 bytes, so meaningful memory growth requires sustained attacker-controlled traffic at high call rates. The bug does not cause memory corruption, information disclosure, or any change in the behavior of the transform itself, and the string-handling exception is raised as expected. Applications that do not pass raw attacker-controlled bytes to XSLT parameters are unlikely to be affected in practice. ## Resources - [CWE-401: Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime](https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/401.html) ## Credit This vulnerability was responsibly reported by @Captainjack-kor.