What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2018-16539

• Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.0)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 1.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2018-09-05 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-200

Description

In Artifex Ghostscript before 9.24, attackers able to supply crafted PostScript files could use incorrect access checking in temp file handling to disclose contents of files on the system otherwise not readable.

Affected products

• Artifex Ghostscript: before 9.24 — fixed in 9.24
• Canonical Ubuntu Linux: 14.04, 16.04, 18.04
• Debian Linux: 8.0, 9.0
• RedHat Enterprise Linux Desktop: 7.0
• RedHat Enterprise Linux Server: 7.0
• RedHat Enterprise Linux Server Aus: 7.6
• RedHat Enterprise Linux Server Eus: 7.6
• RedHat Enterprise Linux Server Tus: 7.6
• RedHat Enterprise Linux Workstation: 7.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Artifex Ghostscript 9.24. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• http://git.ghostscript.com/?p=ghostpdl.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=a054156d425b4dbdaaa9fda4b5f1182b27598c2b
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:3650
• https://bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi?id=699658
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/09/msg00015.html
• https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201811-12
• https://usn.ubuntu.com/3768-1/
• https://www.artifex.com/news/ghostscript-security-resolved/
• https://www.debian.org/security/2018/dsa-4288
• http://git.ghostscript.com/?p=ghostpdl.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=a054156d425b4dbdaaa9fda4b5f1182b27598c2b
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:3650
• https://bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi?id=699658
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/09/msg00015.html

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