What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-45673: Arbitrary code execution on click of PDF links in Joplin

• Severity: critical (CVSS 9.0 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 1.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2024-06-21 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-94

Description

Joplin is a free, open source note taking and to-do application. A remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in affected versions allows clicking on a link in a PDF in an untrusted note to execute arbitrary shell commands. Clicking links in PDFs allows for arbitrary code execution because Joplin desktop: 1. has not disabled top redirection for note viewer iframes, and 2. and has node integration enabled. This is a remote code execution vulnerability that impacts anyone who attaches untrusted PDFs to notes and has the icon enabled. This issue has been addressed in version 2.13.3. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

Affected products

• laurent22 joplin: before 2.13.3 — fixed in 2.13.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: laurent22 joplin 2.13.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/iframe#sandbox
• https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/security/advisories/GHSA-g8qx-5vcm-3x59
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/iframe#sandbox
• https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/security/advisories/GHSA-g8qx-5vcm-3x59

Get alerted when CVE-2023-45673 or the next vulnerability affects your stack