I'd like to announce that 3.2.11, 3.1.10, 3.0.19, and 2.3.15 have been released. These releases contain two extremely critical security fixes so please update IMMEDIATELY.
Due to the way Active Record interprets parameters in combination with the way that JSON parameters are parsed, it is possible for an attacker to issue unexpected database queries with "IS NULL" or empty where clauses. This issue does *not* let an attacker insert arbitrary values into an SQL query, however they can cause the query to check for NULL or eliminate a WHERE clause when most users wouldn't expect it.
For example, a system has password reset with token functionality:
unless params[:token].nil?
user = User.find_by_token(params[:token])
user.reset_password!
end
An attacker can craft a request such that `params[:token]` will return `[nil]`. The `[nil]` value will bypass the test for nil, but will still add an "IN ('xyz', NULL)" clause to the SQL query.
Similarly, an attacker can craft a request such that `params[:token]` will return an empty hash. An empty hash will eliminate the WHERE clause of the query, but can bypass the `nil?` check.
Note that this impacts not only dynamic finders (`find_by_*`) but also relations (`User.where(:name => params[:name])`).