CVE-2017-8291

Artifex Ghostscript: Type Confusion

As of , CVE-2017-8291 in Artifex Ghostscript is on CISA's list of exploited vulnerabilities: CISA listed it on . Our patch-first group: Patch this week.

Exploited
Yes: CISA listed it on 24 May 2022
US federal deadline
14 June 202221 days after CISA listed it. US federal civilian agencies must fix it by then.
Used in ransomware campaigns
Not known to CISA
EPSS score
0.97Higher than 99% of the CVEs EPSS scores. EPSS estimates the chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days.
EPSS when listed
0.91 on 24 May 2022EPSS on the day CISA listed it.
Public exploit
1 Metasploit module and 1 Exploit-DB entry (1 verified)
Fix
No vendor link in CISA's entry

What CISA says to do

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

CISA's required action

What the flaw is

Artifex Ghostscript allows -dSAFER bypass and remote command execution via .rsdparams type confusion with a "/OutputFile.

CISA's description

Artifex Ghostscript through 2017-04-26 allows -dSAFER bypass and remote command execution via .rsdparams type confusion with a "/OutputFile (%pipe%" substring in a crafted .eps document that is an input to the gs program, as exploited in the wild in April 2017.

The CVE record's description, from mitre

CVE published
27 April 2017
Assigned by
mitre
CVSS
7.8 High (CVSS 3.1, from CISA-ADP)
CWE-843
Access of Resource Using Incompatible Type ('Type Confusion')
CWE-704
Incorrect Type Conversion or Cast
CISA SSVC, exploitation
active
CISA SSVC, automatable
no
CISA SSVC, technical impact
total

Timeline

  1. The CVE record was published.
  2. Exploit-DB published an exploit (EDB-ID 41955).
  3. CISA added it to its list of exploited vulnerabilities.
  4. The US federal deadline to fix it.

Public exploits

Facts from Metasploit's module list and Exploit-DB's index; we never copy exploit code.

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