Artifex Ghostscript Type Confusion Vulnerability

HIGH 7.8EXPLOITED (CISA KEV)CVE-2017-8291 · Published 27/04/2017 · updated 17/06/2026

Artifex Ghostscript Type Confusion Vulnerability. Actively exploited: CISA added this vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 24/05/2022. Patch affected systems as an emergency.

Package	Affected versions	Patched versions
ghostscript artifex	`< 9.21`	`9.21`

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.

References

openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/04/28/2 · Mailing List
debian.org/security/2017/dsa-3838 · Mailing List
securityfocus.com/bid/98476 · Broken Link
access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:1230 · Third Party Advisory
bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi · Issue Tracking
bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi · Issue Tracking
bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi · Exploit
git.ghostscript.com · Broken Link
security.gentoo.org/glsa/201708-06 · Third Party Advisory
exploit-db.com/exploits/41955 · Exploit
cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog · US Government Resource
CISA KEV · CVE-2017-8291

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