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Fencer Vulns
high 8.8

CVE-2017-14482 json

GNU Emacs before 25.3 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via email with crafted "Content-Type: text/enriched" data containin…

published 2017-09-14 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-5985

cvss
8.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
4.0%
EPSS 4.0% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 90%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

GNU Emacs before 25.3 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via email with crafted "Content-Type: text/enriched" data containing an x-display XML element that specifies execution of shell commands, related to an unsafe text/enriched extension in lisp/textmodes/enriched.el, and unsafe Gnus support for enriched and richtext inline MIME objects in lisp/gnus/mm-view.el. In particular, an Emacs user can be instantly compromised by reading a crafted email message (or Usenet news article).

Patch / fix

  • emacs24 Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 24.3+1-2ubuntu1.1
  • emacs24 Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 24.5+1-6ubuntu1.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-14482

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • emacs RHEL 7 1:24.3-20.el7_4
  • emacs-el RHEL 7 1:24.3-20.el7_4
  • emacs-nox RHEL 7 1:24.3-20.el7_4
  • emacs-common RHEL 7 1:24.3-20.el7_4
  • emacs-terminal RHEL 7 1:24.3-20.el7_4
  • emacs-filesystem RHEL 7 1:24.3-20.el7_4

red hat advisories RHSA-2017:2771

  • emacs SLES for SAP 11 SP4, SLES 11 SP4, SLES 11 SP3-TERADATA +3 more 22.3-42.3.1
  • emacs SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES for SAP 12 SP1 +8 more 24.3-25.3.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2017:2532-1SUSE-SU-2017:2529-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2017-14482 updated cvss 8.1

emacs: command injection flaw within "enriched mode" handling

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 emacs Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 emacs, emacs-el, emacs-nox, emacs-common
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) emacs 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-nox 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-common 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-filesystem 24.3-20.el7_4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) emacs-el 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-terminal 24.3-20.el7_4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode (v. 7) emacs 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-filesystem 24.3-20.el7_4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode Optional (v. 7) emacs 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-el 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-nox 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-common 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-terminal 24.3-20.el7_4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) emacs 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-nox 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-common 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-filesystem 24.3-20.el7_4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) emacs-el 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-terminal 24.3-20.el7_4
    +2 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) emacs 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-nox 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-common 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-filesystem 24.3-20.el7_4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) emacs-el 24.3-20.el7_4, emacs-terminal 24.3-20.el7_4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:2771

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

4.01% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 90% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 8.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.