CVE-2023-28879: artifex ghostscript Out-of-bounds Write
Vulnerability summary
CVE-2023-28879 is a critical (CVSS 9.8) Out-of-bounds Write vulnerability in artifex ghostscript. EPSS estimates a 6.34% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 93.5% of scored vulnerabilities. 1 public exploit is recorded.
Advisory lineage
Upstream 0 · Downstream 2Timeline
- 31-03-2023PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
- 14-02-2025Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.
Description
In Artifex Ghostscript through 10.01.0, there is a buffer overflow leading to potential corruption of data internal to the PostScript interpreter, in base/sbcp.c. This affects BCPEncode, BCPDecode, TBCPEncode, and TBCPDecode. If the write buffer is filled to one byte less than full, and one then tries to write an escaped character, two bytes are written.
CVSS metrics
5 scores · 5 sources · 1 version- OSV · AlpineEcosystem advisory · calculated9.8CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- OSV · UbuntuEcosystem advisory · calculated9.8CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- OSV · DebianEcosystem advisory · calculated9.8CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- NVDNIST9.8CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS trend
Probability
6.34%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days
Percentile
94%
Versus all other CVEs
30-day change
0.00 pp
From 6.34% on 19-09-2026
Known exploited
Compare KEV catalogsNot in any of the 3 tracked catalogs.
Public exploits
1 foundExploit Reference (bugs.ghostscript.com)
Maturity: unknown
Weaknesses
CWE · root causeAffected systems
Suse25 products
- ghostscript&distro=SUSE Enterprise Storage 7< 9.52-150000.164.1
- ghostscript&distro=SUSE Enterprise Storage 7.1< 9.52-150000.164.1
- ghostscript&distro=SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP1-LTSS< 9.52-150000.164.1
- ghostscript&distro=SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP2-LTSS< 9.52-150000.164.1
- ghostscript&distro=SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3-ESPOS< 9.52-150000.164.1
Debian2 products
- ghostscript< 10.0.0~dfsg-11 | < 9.53.3~dfsg-7+deb11u4 | < 9.27~dfsg-2+deb10u7
- debian_linuxEOL10.0 | 11.0
Opensuse2 products
- ghostscript&distro=openSUSE Leap 15.4< 9.52-150000.164.1
- ghostscript&distro=openSUSE Tumbleweed< 9.56.1-2.1
Alpine1 product
- ghostscript< 9.54.0-r2 | < 9.55.0-r1 | < 9.56.1-r1 | < 10.0.0-r1
Artifex1 product
- ghostscript< 10.01.0
Mageia1 product
- ghostscript< 9.53.3-2.4.mga8
Ubuntu1 product
- ghostscript< 9.26~dfsg+0-0ubuntu0.16.04.14+esm5 | < 9.26~dfsg+0-0ubuntu0.18.04.18 | < 9.50~dfsg-5ubuntu4.7 | < 9.55.0~dfsg1-0ubuntu5.2
7 vendors · 33 products
References
27 links
- lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/…Vendor Advisory
- www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/04/12/4Mailing List
- lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/…Vendor Advisory
- lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/…Vendor Advisory
- security.gentoo.org/glsa/202309-03Vendor Advisory