Summary
### Summary Elo's Ruby backend emits attacker-controlled text into Ruby double-quoted strings without escaping the `#` character. Because `#` begins Ruby's interpolation sequences — `#{expr}`, `#@ivar`, `#@@cvar`, `#$gvar` — and any expression wrapped in `#{...}` may use backticks for shell execution, an Elo program that contains a crafted string literal or a labelled subtype constraint compiles to Ruby that evaluates attacker-chosen Ruby, and through backticks runs attacker-chosen shell commands, at runtime. The same Elo source compiled to JavaScript, Python, or SQL is benign, so the bug also breaks the cross-target portability guarantee the rest of the compiler honours. ### Vulnerable sinks Two sinks exist in `src/compilers/ruby.ts` at commit `749af7b`: 1. **String-literal emitter — lines 180–184.** The emitter escapes backslash, double quote, and control characters, but not `#`. Any `#{...}` sequence in an Elo string literal flows straight into the emitted Ruby source. 2. **Labelled subtype-constraint branch — lines 405–412.** The error message passed to `p_fail(p, "...")` is wrapped in a Ruby double-quoted string with no escape pass at all. Because the parser at `src/parser.ts:1339–1348` accepts single-quoted Elo strings as constraint labels, a label such as `'#{` `` `id` `` `}'` flows unchanged into the emitted Ruby. ### Attack surfaces All three surfaces share the same root cause (the missing `#` escape in the Ruby double-quoted-string emission path) and are addressed by the same patch: | # | Entry point | Threat model | |---|---|---| | 1 | `/try` playground on elo-lang.org (Ruby target) | 0-click server-side RCE against elo-lang.org infrastructure from a shared PoC URL | | 2 | `bin/eloc -t ruby -x` on a CI or DevOps host | RCE on any host that passes Elo strings through the CLI | | 3 | Library API — `defaultFormats.elo.parse()` with a Ruby emission step | Ruby RCE for any downstream integrator using Elo as a rule engine, configuration DSL, or form builder DS…
Remediation
References
- Advisoryhttps://github.com/advisories/GHSA-7w38-ggh5-v542
- Referencehttps://github.com/enspirit/elo/security/advisories/GHSA-7w38-ggh5-v542
- Referencehttps://github.com/enspirit/elo/commit/51b869963fbe445c18328714a7ccfbd76b21ba38
- Referencehttps://github.com/enspirit/elo/commit/d2a89a8db76a244eb740687524a7e8529b7554b5