Possible arbitrary path traversal and file access via yard server
Published: April 17, 2026
SECURITY IDENTIFIERS
- CVE: CVE-2026-41493 (NVD)
- GHSA: GHSA-3jfp-46x4-xgfj
- Vendor Advisory: https://github.com/lsegal/yard/security/advisories/GHSA-3jfp-46x4-xgfj
GEM
SEVERITY
CVSS v3.x: 7.5 (High)
PATCHED VERSIONS
>= 0.9.42
DESCRIPTION
Impact
A path traversal vulnerability was discovered in YARD <= 0.9.41 when using yard server to serve documentation. This bug would allow unsanitized HTTP requests to access arbitrary files on the machine of a yard server host under certain conditions.
The original patch in GHSA-xfhh-rx56-rxcr was incorrectly applied.
Patches
Please upgrade to YARD v0.9.42 immediately if you are relying on
yard server to host documentation in any untrusted environments
without WEBrick and rely on --docroot.
Workarounds
For users who cannot upgrade, it is possible to perform path sanitization of HTTP requests at your webserver level. WEBrick, for example, can perform such sanitization by default (which you can use via yard server -s webrick), as can certain rules in your webserver configuration.
