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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2019-6116 in the critical feed json

In Artifex Ghostscript through 9.26, ephemeral or transient procedures can allow access to system operators, leading to remote code executi…

published 2019-03-19 7 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2019-15683

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
41.6%
EPSS 41.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 98%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

In Artifex Ghostscript through 9.26, ephemeral or transient procedures can allow access to system operators, leading to remote code execution.

Patch / fix

  • ghostscript Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 9.26a~dfsg-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2019-6116

  • ghostscript Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 9.26~dfsg+0-0ubuntu0.14.04.4
  • ghostscript Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 9.26~dfsg+0-0ubuntu0.16.04.4
  • ghostscript Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 9.26~dfsg+0-0ubuntu0.18.04.4

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2019-6116

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_6.9
  • ghostscript-gtk RHEL 7 9.07-31.el7_6.9
  • ghostscript-cups RHEL 7 9.07-31.el7_6.9

red hat advisories RHSA-2019:0229

  • ghostscript SLES 12 SP4, SLES 12 SP3, SLES 12 SP2-BCL +13 more 9.26a-23.19.1
  • libspectre SLES 12 SP4, SLES 12 SP3, SLES 12 SP2-BCL +13 more 0.2.7-12.6.1
  • ghostscript SLE Module for Basesystem 15 9.26a-3.12.1
  • libspectre SLE Module for Desktop Applications 15 0.2.8-3.6.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2019:0144-2SUSE-SU-2019:0145-1SUSE-SU-2019:0144-1

  • ghostscript openSUSE Tumbleweed 9.54.0-2.2
  • ghostscript openSUSE Leap 15.0 9.26a-lp150.2.12.1
  • ghostscript-mini openSUSE Leap 15.0 9.26a-lp150.2.12.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10783-1openSUSE-SU-2019:0104-1

  • ghostscript Alpine 3.12, Alpine 3.11, Alpine 3.10 +4 more 9.26-r2
  • ghostscript Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +9 more 9.26-r1

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2019-6116

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 9.26-2

arch linux advisories AVG-860

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-2019-6116 updated cvss 7.3

ghostscript: subroutines within pseudo-operators must themselves be pseudo-operators (700317)

  • 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_6.9, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-31.el7_6.9, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM and IBM Power LE (POWER9) Server (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-31.el7_6.9, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM and IBM Power LE (POWER9) Server Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.9
    +4 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-31.el7_6.9, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-31.el7_6.9, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.9
    fixed: vendor fix “Please refer to the "Mitigation" section of CVE-2018-16509 : https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2018-16509” RHSA-2019:0229
  • 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-46242)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

41.59% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 98% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-46242 Ghostscript 9.26 - Pseudo-Operator Remote Code Execution remote, 2019-01-24
  • bugs.chromium.org https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=1729 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • openwall.com http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/01/23/5 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • bugs.ghostscript.com https://bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi?id=700317 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/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.