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Fencer Vulns
high 8.6

CVE-2018-17961 json

Artifex Ghostscript 9.25 and earlier allows attackers to bypass a sandbox protection mechanism via vectors involving errorhandler setup.

published 2018-10-15 8 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2018-9701

cvss
8.6
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
10.0%
EPSS 10.0% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 95%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

Artifex Ghostscript 9.25 and earlier allows attackers to bypass a sandbox protection mechanism via vectors involving errorhandler setup. NOTE: this issue exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2018-17183.

Patch / fix

  • artifex ghostscript 9.25
  • ghostscript Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 9.25~dfsg-3

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2018-17961

  • ghostscript Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 9.25~dfsg+1-0ubuntu0.14.04.2
  • ghostscript Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 9.25~dfsg+1-0ubuntu0.16.04.2
  • ghostscript Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 9.25~dfsg+1-0ubuntu0.18.04.2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2018-17961

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

  • ghostscript RHEL 7 9.07-31.el7_6.6
  • ghostscript-gtk RHEL 7 9.07-31.el7_6.6
  • ghostscript-cups RHEL 7 9.07-31.el7_6.6

red hat advisories RHSA-2018:3834

  • ghostscript SLES 12 SP4, SLES 12 SP3, SLES 12 SP2-BCL +13 more 9.26-23.16.1
  • libspectre SLES 12 SP4, SLES 12 SP3, SLES 12 SP2-BCL +13 more 0.2.7-12.4.1
  • ghostscript SLE Module for Basesystem 15 9.26-3.9.4
  • libspectre SLE Module for Desktop Applications 15 0.2.8-3.4.3

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2018:4090-2SUSE-SU-2018:4090-1SUSE-SU-2018:4087-1

  • ghostscript openSUSE Tumbleweed 9.54.0-2.2

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10783-1

  • ghostscript Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +17 more 9.25-r1

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2018-17961

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • ghostscript Arch Linux 9.25-4

arch linux advisories AVG-786

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-2018-17961 updated cvss 7.5

ghostscript: Saved execution stacks can leak operator arrays (incomplete fix for CVE-2018-17183)

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 ghostscript Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 ghostscript, ghostscript-gtk
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Please refer to the "Mitigation" section of CVE-2018-16509 : https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2018-16509”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-31.el7_6.6, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-31.el7_6.6, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM and IBM Power LE (POWER9) Server (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-31.el7_6.6, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM and IBM Power LE (POWER9) Server Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.6
    +4 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-31.el7_6.6, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-31.el7_6.6, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.6
    fixed: vendor fix “Please refer to the "Mitigation" section of CVE-2018-16509 : https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2018-16509” RHSA-2018:3834
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 libgs, ghostscript, ghostscript-x11, ghostscript-tools-fonts, ghostscript-tools-dvipdf, ghostscript-tools-printing
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

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

Timeline

  1. First public exploit (EDB-45573)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

9.98% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 95% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-45573 ghostscript - executeonly Bypass with errorhandler Setup local, 2018-10-09
  • openwall.com http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2018/10/09/4 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 8.6 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-209 Generation of Error Message Containing Sensitive Information

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.