CVE-2003-1232

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.1 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 3.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2003-12-31 · updated 2026-06-16

Description

Emacs 21.2.1 does not prompt or warn the user before executing Lisp code in the local variables section of a text file, which allows user-assisted attackers to execute arbitrary commands, as demonstrated using the mode-name variable.

Affected products

GNU Emacs: 21.2.1

References

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=286183
http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.bug/browse_frm/thread/9424ec1b2fdae321/c691a2da8904db0f?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dguninski%2Bemacs%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26selm%3Dmailman.763.1041357806.19936.bug-gnu-emacs%2540gnu.org%26rnum%3D1#c691a2da8904db0f
http://lists.grok.org.uk/pipermail/full-disclosure/2003-May/005089.html
http://secunia.com/advisories/17496
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDKSA-2005:208
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/15375
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=286183
http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.bug/browse_frm/thread/9424ec1b2fdae321/c691a2da8904db0f?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dguninski%2Bemacs%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26selm%3Dmailman.763.1041357806.19936.bug-gnu-emacs%2540gnu.org%26rnum%3D1#c691a2da8904db0f
http://lists.grok.org.uk/pipermail/full-disclosure/2003-May/005089.html
http://secunia.com/advisories/17496
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDKSA-2005:208
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/15375

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