GitHub Advisoryadvisory · RubyGems
GHSA-2762-657x-v979 AlchemyCMS: Authenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE) via eval injection in ResourcesHelper
MEDIUM
Official page ↗
- Aliases
- CVE-2026-23885
- Ecosystem
- RubyGems
- Packages
- alchemy_cms
- Severity
- Moderate
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Weaknesses
- CWE-95
- Reviewed
- 2026-01-21
Affected packages
• RubyGems alchemy_cms: < 7.4.12 → fixed in 7.4.12
• RubyGems alchemy_cms: >= 8.0.0.a, < 8.0.3 → fixed in 8.0.3
Description
Summary
A vulnerability was discovered during a manual security audit of the AlchemyCMS source code. The application uses the Ruby `eval()` function to dynamically execute a string provided by the `resource_handler.engine_name` attribute in `Alchemy::ResourcesHelper#resource_url_proxy`.
Details
The vulnerability exists in `app/helpers/alchemy/resources_helper.rb` at line 28. The code explicitly bypasses security linting with `# rubocop:disable Security/Eval`, indicating that the use of a dangerous function was known but not properly mitigated.
Since `engine_name` is sourced from module definitions that can be influenced by administrative configurations, it allows an authenticated attacker to escape the Ruby sandbox and execute arbitrary system commands on the host OS.
But, for this attack to be possible local file access to the alchemy project or the source on a remote server is necessary in order to manipulate the module config file, though.
PoC (Proof of Concept)
The following standalone Ruby script demonstrates that the `eval` sink is directly exploitable:
```ruby
require 'ostruct'
def resource_url_proxy(resource_handler)
if resource_handler.engine_name && !resource_handler.engine_name.empty?
eval(resource_handler.engine_name)
end
end
Payload to create a file in /tmp directory
payload = "system('touch /tmp/alchemy_rce_verified'); 'main_app'"
handler = OpenStruct.new(engine_name: payload)
resource_url_proxy(handler)
if File.exist?('/tmp/alchemy_rce_verified')
puts "RCE Verified: Command executed successfully."
end
```
Related
Alias · CVE (1)
- CVE-2026-23885 Alchemy is an open source content management system engine written in Ruby on Rails. vulnerability
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-95 Improper Neutralization of Directives in Dynamically Evaluated Code weakness
References
- https://github.com/AlchemyCMS/alchemy_cms/security/advisories/GHSA-2762-657x-v979 web
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-23885 advisory
- https://github.com/AlchemyCMS/alchemy_cms/commit/55d03ec600fd9e07faae1138b923790028917d26 web
- https://github.com/AlchemyCMS/alchemy_cms/commit/563c4ce45bf5813b7823bf3403ca1fc32cb769e7 web
- https://github.com/AlchemyCMS/alchemy_cms package
- https://github.com/AlchemyCMS/alchemy_cms/releases/tag/v7.4.12 web
- https://github.com/AlchemyCMS/alchemy_cms/releases/tag/v8.0.3 web
- https://github.com/rubysec/ruby-advisory-db/blob/master/gems/alchemy_cms/CVE-2026-23885.yml web