The vulnerability is a credential leakage issue in the uri gem, stemming from the improper handling of the URI authority component (userinfo, host, port). The primary exploit vector is the + operator, which is an alias for the merge method in the URI::Generic class.
The analysis of the patches reveals that the merge method's logic was flawed. It did not treat the authority component as an atomic unit, allowing userinfo from one URI to be combined with the host of another, leading to credential leakage. The fix introduces a new authority method to handle this component correctly.
Furthermore, several setter methods (set_userinfo, set_user, host=, port=) had insecure default behaviors. They would fail to clear stale credentials when parts of the URI were updated. For instance, changing the host did not clear the userinfo, causing the old credentials to be associated with a new host. The patches rectify this by explicitly clearing userinfo in these setters.
Therefore, the vulnerable functions are URI::Generic#merge as the main entry point for the described attack, and the setters URI::Generic#set_userinfo, URI::Generic#set_user, URI::Generic#host=, and URI::Generic#port= for their role in the insecure state management of URI objects.