CVE-2017-8291 — Red Hat
HIGHCVE-2017-8291 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) CWE-843 vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-05-24) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2022-05-24. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-06-14.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2017-8291.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2017-8291 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
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.
Affected Products
ghostscriptartifexdebian linuxdebianenterprise linux desktopredhatenterprise linux eusredhatenterprise linux serverredhatenterprise linux server ausredhatResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Ghostscript 9.21 - Type Confusion Arbitrary Command Execution (Metasploit)
by Metasploit · May 2, 2017
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2017-8291 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | ghostscript-0:8.70-23.el6_9.2 | RHSA-2017:1230 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2017-8291 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.