Ruby SAML DOS vulnerability with large SAML response
Date: 2025-07
Affected: rubygems/ruby-saml
Attack vector: dos
Category: vulnerability-disclosure
Severity: Medium
CVE: CVE-2025-54572
CWE: CWE-400
CWE-770

### Summary A denial-of-service vulnerability exists in ruby-saml even with the message_max_bytesize setting configured. The vulnerability occurs because the SAML response is validated for Base64 format prior to checking the message size, leading to potential resource exhaustion. ### Details `ruby-saml` includes a `message_max_bytesize` setting intended to prevent DOS attacks and decompression bombs. However, this protection is ineffective in some cases due to the order of operations in the code: https://github.com/SAML-Toolkits/ruby-saml/blob/fbbedc978300deb9355a8e505849666974ef2e67/lib/onelogin/ruby-saml/saml_message.rb ```ruby def decode_raw_saml(saml, settings = nil) return saml unless base64_encoded?(saml) # <--- Issue here. Should be moved after next code block. settings = OneLogin::RubySaml::Settings.new if settings.nil? if saml.bytesize > settings.message_max_bytesize raise ValidationError.new("Encoded SAML Message exceeds " + settings.message_max_bytesize.to_s + " bytes, so was rejected") end decoded = decode(saml) ... end ``` The vulnerability is in the execution order. Prior to checking bytesize the `base64_encoded?` function performs regex matching on the entire input string: ```ruby !!string.gsub(/[\r\n]|\\r|\\n|\s/, "").match(BASE64_FORMAT) ``` ### Impact _What kind of vulnerability is it? Who is impacted?_ When successfully exploited, this vulnerability can lead to: - Excessive memo


Mitigations:

Architectural layers (MAESTRO):