Use After Free in Nokogiri

CVE-2026-57236

Nokogiri is an open source XML and HTML library for the Ruby programming language. Prior to 1.19.4, calling Document#encoding= with an invalid encoding (e.g., a non-string, or a string containing a null byte) raises an exception, but only after freeing the document's current encoding string without replacing it. The document is left referencing freed memory, so the next call to Document#encoding reads invalid memory, which can cause a segfault or leak freed bytes into a Ruby String. Affects the CRuby (libxml2) implementation only; JRuby is not affected. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.19.4.

Vulnerability class: Use-After-Free

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 8.2 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.004 (34.4th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 34th percentile — 34.4% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-57236: held from 0.003 to 0.004.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.003 · newest: 0.004 · change: +0.001

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-57236?
CVE-2026-57236 is a high-severity vulnerability in Nokogiri, classified under Use After Free. CVSS score: 8.2/10. Published 2026-06-25.
How severe is CVE-2026-57236?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.2 out of 10.