GHSA-97jw-64cj-jc58

Summary

ViewComponent::Base#around_render can return HTML-unsafe strings that bypass the escaping behavior applied to normal #call return values. This creates an XSS risk when downstream applications use around_render to wrap, replace, instrument, or conditionally return content that includes user-controlled data.

The issue is especially dangerous in collection rendering because ViewComponent::Collection#render_in joins the per-item results and marks the entire output as html_safe, converting raw unsafe output into a trusted ActiveSupport::SafeBuffer.

Affected Code

Validated against:

• Repository commit: eea79445
• Ruby: 3.4.9

Relevant locations:

• lib/view_component/base.rb
  • render_in
  • around_render
  • __vc_maybe_escape_html
• lib/view_component/template.rb
  • InlineCall#safe_method_name_call
• lib/view_component/collection.rb
  • Collection#render_in

Key code paths:

# lib/view_component/base.rb
around_render do
  render_template_for(@__vc_requested_details).to_s
end

# lib/view_component/template.rb
proc do
  __vc_maybe_escape_html(send(m)) do
    Kernel.warn(...)
  end
end

# lib/view_component/collection.rb
components.map do |component|
  component.render_in(view_context, &block)
end.join(rendered_spacer(view_context)).html_safe

Root Cause

Normal inline #call output is passed through __vc_maybe_escape_html, which escapes HTML-unsafe strings. However, when around_render itself returns a string, the returned value becomes the component render result without being passed through the same HTML-safety boundary.

This creates two different output-safety behaviors:

• #call returning unsafe string: escaped
• #around_render returning unsafe string: raw

Collection rendering then amplifies the issue by calling .html_safe on the joined result.

Proof of Concept

Run from the repository root:

$LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("lib", Dir.pwd)
require...