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Photoshop CVE-2022-38428

MEDIUM
Use After Free (CWE-416)
2022-09-16 psirt@adobe.com
5.5
CVSS 3.1 · Vendor: adobe
View

Vulnerability Assessment

Weakness
CWE
ASVS 5.0
V15 - Secure Coding and Architecture Memory lifecycle management
MITRE ATT&CK

2 techniques across 2 tactics: Execution, Privilege Escalation

The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up.

Impact

CVSS score of 5.5 (MEDIUM). Attack characteristics: local attack vector, low complexity, no privileges required, user interaction required.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

A local attacker with access to the system could access freed memory to execute arbitrary code or crash the application. No authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability.

This Month Plan within 30 days. Why: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9).
No patch listed yet 0.4% exploitation probability (EPSS)

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AnalysisAI

Adobe Photoshop versions 22.5.8 (and earlier) and 23.4.2 (and earlier) are affected by a Use After Free vulnerability that could lead to disclosure of sensitive memory. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.

RemediationAI

No vendor patch is available at time of analysis. Monitor vendor advisories for updates. Use smart pointers or garbage-collected languages. Set pointers to NULL after freeing. Enable memory sanitizers.

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 as Use After Free (CWE-416), which allows attackers to access freed memory to execute arbitrary code or crash the application. Adobe Photoshop versions 22.5.8 (and earlier) and 23.4.2 (and earlier) are affected by a Use After Free vulnerability that could lead to disclosure of sensitive memory. An attacker could leverage this vulnerability to bypass mitigations such as ASLR. Exploitation of this issue requires user interaction in that a victim must open a malicious file. Affected products include: Adobe Photoshop.

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  • Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources

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Severity by source

Vendor (adobe) PRIMARY 5.5 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Primary rating from Vendor (adobe) · only source for this CVE.

CVSS VectorVendor: adobe

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

DescriptionCVE.org

Adobe Photoshop versions 22.5.8 (and earlier) and 23.4.2 (and earlier) are affected by a Use After Free vulnerability that could lead to disclosure of sensitive memory. An attacker could leverage this vulnerability to bypass mitigations such as ASLR. Exploitation of this issue requires user interaction in that a victim must open a malicious file.

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
0.4%
Top 64% exploitable
Data Quality
2 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 MEDIUM
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 0.4%
Patch available No
Active threat No
Deciding rule
MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9)
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
Defer
Exploitation· derived
None
System Exposure· derived
Small
Automatable· derived
No
Human Impact· derived
Medium

Priority Score

28
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: 0
CVSS: +28
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

Use-after-free vulnerabilities occur when a program continues to access memory through a pointer after that memory has been deallocated.

Memory corruption occurs when a program writes data beyond the boundaries of allocated memory regions or accesses memory in unintended ways, violating the integrity of the process's address space.

Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.

Affected Products (CPE)CVE.org

cpe:2.3:a:adobe:photoshop:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:adobe:photoshop:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
CVE-2012-2027 CRITICAL POC
9.3 May 09

Use-after-free vulnerability in Adobe Photoshop CS5 12.x before 12.0.5 and CS5.1 12.1.x before 12.1.1 allows remote atta

CVE-2012-2028 CRITICAL
9.3 May 09

Buffer overflow in Adobe Photoshop CS5 12.x before 12.0.5 and CS5.1 12.1.x before 12.1.1 allows remote attackers to exec

CVE-2017-11303 CRITICAL
9.8 Dec 09

An issue was discovered in Adobe Photoshop 18.1.1 (2017.1.1) and earlier versions. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), t

CVE-2017-11304 CRITICAL
9.8 Dec 09

An issue was discovered in Adobe Photoshop 18.1.1 (2017.1.1) and earlier versions. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), t

CVE-2020-9687 HIGH
8.8 Jul 22

Adobe Photoshop versions Photoshop CC 2019, and Photoshop 2020 have an out-of-bounds write vulnerability. Rated high sev

CVE-2020-9685 HIGH
8.8 Jul 22

Adobe Photoshop versions Photoshop CC 2019, and Photoshop 2020 have an out-of-bounds write vulnerability. Rated high sev

CVE-2020-9684 HIGH
8.8 Jul 22

Adobe Photoshop versions Photoshop CC 2019, and Photoshop 2020 have an out-of-bounds write vulnerability. Rated high sev

CVE-2020-9683 HIGH
8.8 Jul 22

Adobe Photoshop versions Photoshop CC 2019, and Photoshop 2020 have an out-of-bounds read vulnerability. Rated high seve

CVE-2026-95639 HIGH
8.6 Oct 13

Arbitrary code execution in Adobe Photoshop Desktop is possible when a user opens an attacker-supplied file, because an

CVE-2026-76199 HIGH
8.6 Sep 08

Uncontrolled search path element (DLL hijacking, CWE-427) in Adobe Photoshop Desktop allows arbitrary code execution whe

CVE-2021-21006 HIGH
8.6 Jan 13

Adobe Photoshop version 22.1 (and earlier) is affected by a heap buffer overflow vulnerability when handling a specially

CVE-2025-27198 HIGH
7.8 Apr 08

Photoshop Desktop versions 25.12.1, 26.4.1 and earlier are affected by a Heap-based Buffer Overflow vulnerability that c

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