Buffer Overflow vulnerability in pdfimages in xpdf 4.03 allows attackers to crash the application via crafted command.

published 2023-02-03 3 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-23095

cvss: 7.5; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.9%; EPSS 0.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 59%
public exploits: 0; none known

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-2021-36493 updated 2025-11-21 cvss 6.2

xpdf: Buffer Overflow vulnerability in pdfimages

Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none
Automatable: yes
Technical impact: partial
Assessed: 19 mo ago (2025-03-27)

Exploit prediction

0.88% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 59% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

forum.xpdfreader.com https://forum.xpdfreader.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=42160 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CISA ADP	3.1	7.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD	3.1	7.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA	3.1	7.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Classification

Weakness

CWE-787 Out-of-bounds Write

References

forum.xpdfreader.com /viewtopic.php?f=3&t=42160
exploit, vendor-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2021-36493
NVD CVE-2021-36493

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.

Summary