CVE-2026-26961 Rack: Multipart Boundary Parsing Ambiguity allowing WAF Bypass
Attackers can bypass upstream WAFs by exploiting multipart boundary parsing ambiguity in Rack, requiring an intermediary that validates the first boundary.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-26961?
CVE-2026-26961 is a low-severity vulnerability in rack, published on 2 Apr 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Rack is a modular Ruby web server interface. Prior to versions 2.2.23, 3.1.21, and 3.2.6, Rack::Multipart::Parser extracts the boundary parameter from multipart/form-data using a greedy regular expression. When a Content-Type header contains multiple boundary parameters, Rack selects the last one rather than the first. In deployments where an upstream proxy, WAF, or intermediary interprets the first boundary parameter, this mismatch can allow an attacker to smuggle multipart content past upstream inspection and have Rack parse a different body structure than the intermediary validated. This issue has been patched in versions 2.2.23, 3.1.21, and 3.2.6.
Weakness: CWE-436
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-26961?
6 open source packages ship an affected version, including rack. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
rack RubyGems | All versions | 2.2.23 |
rack RubyGems | All versions | 2.2.23 |
rack RubyGems | From 3.0.0.beta1 | 3.1.21 |
rack RubyGems | From 3.0.0.beta1 | 3.1.21 |
rack RubyGems | From 3.2.0 | 3.2.6 |
rack RubyGems | From 3.2.0 | 3.2.6 |
Products include Rack Rack.
How do I fix CVE-2026-26961?
Upgrade rack to a fixed version for your release line: 2.2.23, 3.1.21 or 3.2.6.
Is CVE-2026-26961 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-26961 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in rack
- CVE-2026-34785 Rack: Local file inclusion in `Rack::Static` via URL Prefix Matching
- CVE-2026-34827 Rack: Algorithmic-Complexity DoS in Rack::Multipart::Parser
- CVE-2026-34829 Rack: Denial of Service via Unbounded Multipart File Upload Without Content-Length
- CVE-2026-22860 Rack has a Directory Traversal via Rack:Directory
- CVE-2025-61919 Rack is vulnerable to a memory-exhaustion DoS through unbounded URL-encoded body parsing
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-26961, GHSA-vgpv-f759-9wx3, MINI-24gf-58c3-jg97, MINI-3f2p-ff55-6569, MINI-3wf4-2qq6-23j2, MINI-46j5-45vf-53wx and 21 more.