GitHub Advisoryadvisory · RubyGems

GHSA-2762-657x-v979 AlchemyCMS: Authenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE) via eval injection in ResourcesHelper

MEDIUM Published 2026-01-21 Modified 2026-02-02 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