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Ghostscript CVE-2023-46751

HIGH
Use After Free (CWE-416)
2023-12-06 cve@mitre.org
7.5
CVSS 3.1 · NVD
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 7.5 (HIGH). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, no privileges required, no user interaction not required.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

A remote attacker could access freed memory to execute arbitrary code or crash the application by sending crafted requests to the affected application. No authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability.

This Week Schedule remediation this week. Why: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9).
No patch listed yet 1.5% exploitation probability (EPSS)

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AnalysisAI

An issue was discovered in the function gdev_prn_open_printer_seekable() in Artifex Ghostscript through 10.02.0 allows remote attackers to crash the application via a dangling pointer. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, 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. An issue was discovered in the function gdev_prn_open_printer_seekable() in Artifex Ghostscript through 10.02.0 allows remote attackers to crash the application via a dangling pointer. Affected products include: Artifex Ghostscript. Version information: through 10.02.0.

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  • Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources

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Severity by source

NVD PRIMARY 7.5 HIGH
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

DescriptionNVD

An issue was discovered in the function gdev_prn_open_printer_seekable() in Artifex Ghostscript through 10.02.0 allows remote attackers to crash the application via a dangling pointer.

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
1.5%
Top 28% 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 HIGH
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 1.5%
Patch available No
Active threat No
Deciding rule
HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9)
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
Scheduled
Exploitation· derived
None
System Exposure· derived
Open
Automatable· derived
Yes
Human Impact· derived
Medium

Priority Score

40
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: +2
CVSS: +38
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)NVD

cpe:2.3:a:artifex:ghostscript:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
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

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