Skip to main content

Ghostscript CVE-2020-15900

CRITICAL
Integer Underflow (CWE-191)
2020-07-28 cve@mitre.org
9.8
CVSS 3.1 · NVD
View

Vulnerability Assessment

Weakness
CWE
ASVS 5.0
V15 - Secure Coding and Architecture Integer underflow checks
Impact

CVSS score of 9.8 (CRITICAL). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, no privileges required, no user interaction not required.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

This vulnerability can be exploited remotely over the network. Successful exploitation could compromise the critical-severity affected system.

Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Why: CRITICAL severity.
Patch available 5.2% exploitation probability (EPSS)

Get an e-mail when this CVE is exploited, patched or re-scored. Free account.

Alert me

AnalysisAI

A memory corruption issue was found in Artifex Ghostscript 9.50 and 9.52. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity.

RemediationAI

A vendor patch is available. Apply the latest security update as soon as possible. Apply vendor patches when available. Implement network segmentation and monitoring as interim mitigations.

Affects your stack

Find out whether the stacks and servers you run are on an affected version.

Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.

Technical ContextAI · show details

This vulnerability is classified under CWE-191. A memory corruption issue was found in Artifex Ghostscript 9.50 and 9.52. Use of a non-standard PostScript operator can allow overriding of file access controls. The 'rsearch' calculation for the 'post' size resulted in a size that was too large, and could underflow to max uint32_t. This was fixed in commit 5d499272b95a6b890a1397e11d20937de000d31b. Affected products include: Artifex Ghostscript, Canonical Ubuntu Linux, Opensuse Leap.

Know when Ghostscript gets its next vulnerability

  • Watch products and get an email when something new is published
  • Check this CVE against your own stack and servers
  • Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources

No credit card · 7-day full trial

Severity by source

NVD PRIMARY 9.8 CRITICAL
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.

CVSS VectorNVD

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

DescriptionNVD

A memory corruption issue was found in Artifex Ghostscript 9.50 and 9.52. Use of a non-standard PostScript operator can allow overriding of file access controls. The 'rsearch' calculation for the 'post' size resulted in a size that was too large, and could underflow to max uint32_t. This was fixed in commit 5d499272b95a6b890a1397e11d20937de000d31b.

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
5.2%
Top 9% exploitable
Data Quality
3 sources
Confidence: Low

How this decision was reached

The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.

SignalValue
Severity CRITICAL
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 5.2%
Patch available Yes
Active threat No
Deciding rule
CRITICAL severity
What every action level means
Emergency Immediate action required. Criteria: CRITICAL + in CISA KEV (actively exploited) without patch, OR CRITICAL + EPSS > 30% without patch, OR CRITICAL + active threat signals without patch.
Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Criteria: in KEV with patch available, OR CRITICAL + public POC, OR HIGH + EPSS > 10%, OR CRITICAL + active threat, OR any CRITICAL severity.
This Week Schedule remediation this week. Criteria: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9). Patch within normal change window.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Criteria: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9), lower exploitation probability. Include in regular patch cycle.
Monitor Track and reassess. Criteria: LOW severity (CVSS 0.1-3.9), minimal exploitation risk. No immediate action needed.

SSVC AssessmentENISA

SSVC Decision· derived
Scheduled
Exploitation· derived
None
System Exposure· derived
Open
Automatable· derived
Yes
Human Impact· derived
Medium

Priority Score

54
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: +5
CVSS: +49
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

A buffer overflow occurs when a program writes more data to a memory buffer than it was allocated to hold, causing the excess data to spill into adjacent memory regions.

Integer overflow occurs when an arithmetic operation produces a result that exceeds the maximum value a given integer type can store.

Affected Products (CPE)NVD

cpe:2.3:a:artifex:ghostscript:9.50:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:artifex:ghostscript:9.52:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:*:*:*:lts:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:leap:15.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:leap:15.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
CVE-2017-8291 HIGH POC
7.8 Apr 27

Artifex Ghostscript through 2017-04-26 allows -dSAFER bypass and remote command execution via .rsdparams type confusion

CVE-2016-7976 HIGH POC
8.8 Aug 07

The PS Interpreter in Ghostscript 9.18 and 9.20 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via crafted userparams

CVE-2018-16509 HIGH POC
7.8 Sep 05

An issue was discovered in Artifex Ghostscript before 9.24. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is no aut

CVE-2012-4405 MEDIUM
6.8 Sep 18

Multiple integer underflows in the icmLut_allocate function in International Color Consortium (ICC) Format library (iccl

CVE-2023-28879 CRITICAL POC
9.8 Mar 31

In Artifex Ghostscript through 10.01.0, there is a buffer overflow leading to potential corruption of data internal to t

CVE-2018-18284 HIGH POC
8.6 Oct 19

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

CVE-2018-17961 HIGH POC
8.6 Oct 15

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

CVE-2016-10317 HIGH POC
7.8 Apr 03

The fill_threshhold_buffer function in base/gxht_thresh.c in Artifex Software, Inc. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this

CVE-2017-9611 HIGH POC
7.8 Jul 26

The Ins_MIRP function in base/ttinterp.c in Artifex Ghostscript GhostXPS 9.21 allows remote attackers to cause a denial

CVE-2017-9835 HIGH POC
7.8 Jul 26

The gs_alloc_ref_array function in psi/ialloc.c in Artifex Ghostscript 9.21 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of

CVE-2017-7948 HIGH POC
7.8 Apr 19

Integer overflow in the mark_curve function in Artifex Ghostscript 9.21 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of ser

CVE-2026-101258 HIGH POC
7.8 Oct 06

Ghostscript can execute arbitrary shell commands with the privileges of its process when it renders a crafted PostScript

This site uses cookies essential for authentication and security. No tracking or analytics cookies are used. Privacy Policy