CVE-2026-63118

MCP Ruby SDK is the official Ruby SDK for Model Context Protocol servers and clients. Prior to 0.23.0, MCP::Server::Transports::StreamableHTTPTransport in the mcp gem does not validate the HTTP Host or Origin request headers, which allows a malicious browser page to use DNS rebinding to reach a locally running MCP server and invoke exposed tools. This issue is fixed in version 0.23.0.

MCP Ruby SDK is the official Ruby SDK for Model Context Protocol servers and clients. Prior to 0.23.0, MCP::Server::Transports::StreamableHTTPTransport in the mcp gem does not validate the HTTP Host or Origin request headers, which allows a malicious browser page to use DNS rebinding to reach a locally running MCP server and invoke exposed tools. This issue is fixed in version 0.23.0.

Summary

MCP::Server::Transports::StreamableHTTPTransport (the Rack-mountable Streamable HTTP transport in the mcp gem) processes every incoming JSON-RPC request without ever inspecting the HTTP Host or Origin request headers. There is no AllowedHosts/AllowedOrigins allowlist and no DNS-rebinding guard anywhere in the transport. A local MCP server that binds a loopback or LAN HTTP port is therefore reachable by any web origin a victim's browser visits, via a DNS-rebinding attack: a malicious page rebinds its own hostname to 127.0.0.1, then drives the local MCP server cross-origin to enumerate and invoke its tools and exfiltrate their output. This is the standard browser-driven local-service attack that the MCP Streamable HTTP guidance exists to prevent.

Impact

• An attacker who can get a victim to open a web page can reach any MCP server the victim runs locally over the Streamable HTTP transport (e.g. a developer-tools or filesystem MCP server on localhost).
• Because the transport issues a session and dispatches tools/list / tools/call from a foreign Host/Origin with no rejection, the attacker can drive arbitrary server-exposed tools and read their results, exfiltrating local data (files, secrets, command output) to the attacker's origin.
• The blast radius is whatever the locally-running MCP server exposes. For MCP servers wired to filesystem, shell, or credential tools, this is sensitive-data disclosure and, depending on the tool set, local action execution.

Vulnerable code

File: lib/mcp/server/transports/streamable_http_transport.rb (gem mcp 0.18.0).

The Rack entrypoint and POST handler validate Accept, Content-Type, Mcp-Session-Id, and Mcp-Protocol-Version, but never Host or Origin:

# call(env) -> handle_request(Rack::Request.new(env))  (line 56)
def handle_post(request)
  required_types = @enable_json_response ? REQUIRED_POST_ACCEPT_TYPES_JSON : REQUIRED_POST_ACCEPT_TYPES_SSE
  accept_error = validate_accept_header(request, required_types)   # line 335 - checks Accept only
  return accept_error if accept_error

  content_type_error = validate_content_type(request)             # line 338 - checks Content-Type only
  return content_type_error if content_type_error

  body_string = request.body.read
  session_id = extract_session_id(request)                        # line 342 - reads HTTP_MCP_SESSION_ID

No statement anywhere in handle_post, handle_request, or any helper reads request.env["HTTP_HOST"] or request.env["HTTP_ORIGIN"].

The only request-env reads in the whole class are:

• extract_session_id -> request.env["HTTP_MCP_SESSION_ID"] (line 489)
• validate_accept_header -> request.env["HTTP_ACCEPT"] (line 493)
• validate_content_type -> request.env["CONTENT_TYPE"] (line 512)
• validate_protocol_version_header -> request.env["HTTP_MCP_PROTOCOL_VERSION"] (line 546)

A repository-wide search of lib/ for HTTP_HOST, HTTP_ORIGIN, allowed_host, allowed_origin, rebind, or dns.rebind returns zero matches, confirming no allowlist or rebinding guard exists in the shipped library. The examples/ tree mounts Rack::Cors as application-level middleware, but that is example glue, not a transport-level control, and CORS does not stop a DNS-rebinding attack that arrives as a same-origin request after rebinding.

How the input reaches the sink (attack scenario)

1. A developer runs an MCP server over StreamableHTTPTransport, mounted as a Rack app on a local HTTP port (loopback or LAN).
2. The victim opens http://evil.attacker.com in a browser. The page resolves to the attacker's server, which then re-answers DNS for evil.attacker.com with 127.0.0.1 (DNS rebinding). The browser now treats requests to evil.attacker.com as going to the local MCP server, with Host: evil.attacker.com / Origin: http://evil.attacker.com.
3. The page POSTs an initialize request. The transport accepts it (it never looks at…

MCP Ruby SDK is the official Ruby SDK for Model Context Protocol servers and clients. Prior to 0.23.0, MCP::Server::Transports::StreamableHTTPTransport in the mcp gem does not validate the HTTP Host or Origin request headers, which allows a malicious browser page to use DNS rebinding to reach a locally running MCP server and invoke exposed tools. This issue is fixed in version 0.23.0.

MCP Ruby SDK is the official Ruby SDK for Model Context Protocol servers and clients. Prior to 0.23.0, MCP::Server::Transports::StreamableHTTPTransport in the mcp gem does not validate the HTTP Host or Origin request headers, which allows a malicious browser page to use DNS rebinding to reach a locally running MCP server and invoke exposed tools. This issue is fixed in version 0.23.0.

Summary

MCP::Server::Transports::StreamableHTTPTransport (the Rack-mountable Streamable HTTP transport in the mcp gem) processes every incoming JSON-RPC request without ever inspecting the HTTP Host or Origin request headers. There is no AllowedHosts/AllowedOrigins allowlist and no DNS-rebinding guard anywhere in the transport. A local MCP server that binds a loopback or LAN HTTP port is therefore reachable by any web origin a victim's browser visits, via a DNS-rebinding attack: a malicious page rebinds its own hostname to 127.0.0.1, then drives the local MCP server cross-origin to enumerate and invoke its tools and exfiltrate their output. This is the standard browser-driven local-service attack that the MCP Streamable HTTP guidance exists to prevent.

Impact

• An attacker who can get a victim to open a web page can reach any MCP server the victim runs locally over the Streamable HTTP transport (e.g. a developer-tools or filesystem MCP server on localhost).
• Because the transport issues a session and dispatches tools/list / tools/call from a foreign Host/Origin with no rejection, the attacker can drive arbitrary server-exposed tools and read their results, exfiltrating local data (files, secrets, command output) to the attacker's origin.
• The blast radius is whatever the locally-running MCP server exposes. For MCP servers wired to filesystem, shell, or credential tools, this is sensitive-data disclosure and, depending on the tool set, local action execution.

Vulnerable code

File: lib/mcp/server/transports/streamable_http_transport.rb (gem mcp 0.18.0).

The Rack entrypoint and POST handler validate Accept, Content-Type, Mcp-Session-Id, and Mcp-Protocol-Version, but never Host or Origin:

# call(env) -> handle_request(Rack::Request.new(env))  (line 56)
def handle_post(request)
  required_types = @enable_json_response ? REQUIRED_POST_ACCEPT_TYPES_JSON : REQUIRED_POST_ACCEPT_TYPES_SSE
  accept_error = validate_accept_header(request, required_types)   # line 335 - checks Accept only
  return accept_error if accept_error

  content_type_error = validate_content_type(request)             # line 338 - checks Content-Type only
  return content_type_error if content_type_error

  body_string = request.body.read
  session_id = extract_session_id(request)                        # line 342 - reads HTTP_MCP_SESSION_ID

No statement anywhere in handle_post, handle_request, or any helper reads request.env["HTTP_HOST"] or request.env["HTTP_ORIGIN"].

The only request-env reads in the whole class are:

• extract_session_id -> request.env["HTTP_MCP_SESSION_ID"] (line 489)
• validate_accept_header -> request.env["HTTP_ACCEPT"] (line 493)
• validate_content_type -> request.env["CONTENT_TYPE"] (line 512)
• validate_protocol_version_header -> request.env["HTTP_MCP_PROTOCOL_VERSION"] (line 546)

A repository-wide search of lib/ for HTTP_HOST, HTTP_ORIGIN, allowed_host, allowed_origin, rebind, or dns.rebind returns zero matches, confirming no allowlist or rebinding guard exists in the shipped library. The examples/ tree mounts Rack::Cors as application-level middleware, but that is example glue, not a transport-level control, and CORS does not stop a DNS-rebinding attack that arrives as a same-origin request after rebinding.

How the input reaches the sink (attack scenario)

1. A developer runs an MCP server over StreamableHTTPTransport, mounted as a Rack app on a local HTTP port (loopback or LAN).
2. The victim opens http://evil.attacker.com in a browser. The page resolves to the attacker's server, which then re-answers DNS for evil.attacker.com with 127.0.0.1 (DNS rebinding). The browser now treats requests to evil.attacker.com as going to the local MCP server, with Host: evil.attacker.com / Origin: http://evil.attacker.com.
3. The page POSTs an initialize request. The transport accepts it (it never looks at…