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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2023-38633 json

A directory traversal problem in the URL decoder of librsvg before 2.56.3 could be used by local or remote attackers to disclose files (on…

published 2023-07-22 3 y ago modified 2026-07-25 3 mo ago also EUVD-2023-42432 , JLSEC-2026-512

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.3%
EPSS 2.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 83%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A directory traversal problem in the URL decoder of librsvg before 2.56.3 could be used by local or remote attackers to disclose files (on the local filesystem outside of the expected area), as demonstrated by href=".?../../../../../../../../../../etc/passwd" in an xi:include element.

Patch / fix

  • julia Librsvg_jll 2.54.7+0
  • gnome librsvg 2.46.6, 2.48.11, 2.50.8, 2.52.10, 2.54.6, 2.55.3, 2.56.3
  • librsvg Debian 12 2.54.7+dfsg-1~deb12u1
  • librsvg Debian 14, Debian 13 2.54.7+dfsg-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-38633

  • librsvg Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 2.48.9-1ubuntu0.20.04.4
  • librsvg Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 2.52.5+dfsg-3ubuntu0.2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-38633

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

  • librsvg2 RHEL 9 2.50.7-1.el9_2.1
  • librsvg2-tools RHEL 9 2.50.7-1.el9_2.1
  • librsvg2 RHEL 9.0 EUS 2.50.7-1.el9_0.1
  • librsvg2-tools RHEL 9.0 EUS 2.50.7-1.el9_0.1

red hat advisories RHSA-2023:5081RHSA-2023:4809

  • librsvg SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES for SAP 15 SP2, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS +9 more 2.46.7-150200.3.9.1
  • librsvg SLE Module for Package Hub 15 SP5, SLE Module for Desktop Applications 15 SP5, SLE Module for Desktop Applications 15 SP4 +8 more 2.52.10-150400.3.6.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2023:3208-1SUSE-SU-2023:3021-1

  • librsvg2 AlmaLinux 9 2.50.7-1.el9_2.1
  • librsvg2-tools AlmaLinux 9 2.50.7-1.el9_2.1

almalinux advisories ALSA-2023:5081

  • librsvg Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +4 more 2.56.3-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2023-38633

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

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-2023-38633 updated cvss 5.5

librsvg: Arbitrary file read when xinclude href has special characters

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 librsvg2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 librsvg2, librsvg2-tools
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 librsvg2, librsvg2-tools
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) librsvg2 2.50.7-1.el9_2.1, librsvg2-tools 2.50.7-1.el9_2.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:5081
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream EUS (v.9.0) librsvg2 2.50.7-1.el9_0.1, librsvg2-tools 2.50.7-1.el9_0.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:4809

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

2.33% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 83% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • gitlab.gnome.org https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/librsvg/-/issues/996 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • openwall.com http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/07/27/1 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • canva.dev https://www.canva.dev/blog/engineering/when-url-parsers-disagree-cve-2023-38633/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
OSV 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
julia Librsvg_jll
>=2.52.4+0, <2.54.7+0
2.54.7+0

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory

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.