diff --git a/activesupport/lib/active_support/security_utils.rb b/activesupport/lib/active_support/security_utils.rb
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..64c4801179
--- /dev/null
+++ b/activesupport/lib/active_support/security_utils.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+module ActiveSupport
+  module SecurityUtils
+    # Constant time string comparison.
+    #
+    # The values compared should be of fixed length, such as strings
+    # that have already been processed by HMAC. This should not be used
+    # on variable length plaintext strings because it could leak length info
+    # via timing attacks.
+    def secure_compare(a, b)
+      return false unless a.bytesize == b.bytesize
+
+      l = a.unpack "C#{a.bytesize}"
+
+      res = 0
+      b.each_byte { |byte| res |= byte ^ l.shift }
+      res == 0
+    end
+    module_function :secure_compare
+  end
+end
diff --git a/activesupport/test/security_utils_test.rb b/activesupport/test/security_utils_test.rb
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..08d2e3baa6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/activesupport/test/security_utils_test.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+require 'abstract_unit'
+require 'active_support/security_utils'
+
+class SecurityUtilsTest < ActiveSupport::TestCase
+  def test_secure_compare_should_perform_string_comparison
+    assert ActiveSupport::SecurityUtils.secure_compare('a', 'a')
+    assert !ActiveSupport::SecurityUtils.secure_compare('a', 'b')
+  end
+end