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OpenAdvisories
Medium · 6.0 CVE-2026-32700 EUVD-2026-12968GHSA-57hq-95w6-v4fc

Devise has a confirmable "change email" race condition that permits user to confirm email they have no access to

Published Mar 18, 2026 · Updated Mar 20, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

Devise is an authentication solution for Rails based on Warden. Prior to version 5.0.3, a race condition in Devise's Confirmable module allows an attacker to confirm an email address they do not own. This affects any Devise application using the `reconfirmable` option (the default when using Confirmable with email changes). By sending two concurrent email change requests, an attacker can desynchronize the `confirmation_token` and `unconfirmed_email` fields. The confirmation token is sent to an email the attacker controls, but the `unconfirmed_email` in the database points to a victim's email address. When the attacker uses the token, the victim's email is confirmed on the attacker's account. This is patched in Devise v5.0.3. Users should upgrade as soon as possible. As a workaround, applications can override a specific method from Devise models to force `unconfirmed_email` to be persisted when unchanged. Note that Mongoid does not seem to respect that `will_change!` should force the attribute to be persisted, even if it did not really change, so the user might have to implement a workaround similar to Devise by setting `changed_attributes["unconfirmed_email"] = nil` as well.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
heartcombo devise < 5.0.3 —

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 12 ruby-devise No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS ruby-devise No fix yet —
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS ruby-devise No fix yet —
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS ruby-devise No fix yet —
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS ruby-devise No fix yet —
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS ruby-devise No fix yet —

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
RubyGems devise < 5.0.3 5.0.3 GHSA-57hq-95w6-v4fc

References