CVE-2018-17961

HIGHNVD 8.68.6—
EchelonGraph scoreMEDIUM confidence

Score 8.6 from GitHub Security Advisory (severity: HIGH) published 2022-05-13. NVD baseline CVSS 8.6; sources differ by 0.0.

Triggered by: GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
Sources: epss, ghsa, nvd
Weaponized
8.6
EchelonGraph verdictPlan a fixSerious severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet.
  • High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS: 10%CVSS: 8.6Exploit: NoneExposed: 0

A fix is available — apply it.

Artifex Ghostscript 9.25 and earlier allows attackers to bypass a sandbox protection mechanism via vectors involving errorhandler setup. NOTE: this issue exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2018-17183.

CVSS v3
8.6
EG Score
8.6(medium)
EPSS
95.1%
KEV
Not listed

Published

October 15, 2018

Last Modified

November 21, 2024

References (22)

Patch Availability(2)

Vendor / EcosystemFixed in / PatchReleasedSource
ubuntulibgs9-common (9.25~dfsg+1-0ubuntu0.16.04.2) @ xenial2026-05-28ubuntu
redhatghostscript-0:9.07-31.el7_6.62018-12-17redhat

Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.

Weakness Classification(1)

MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.

All Vendor Advisories

(2)

Every vendor that published an advisory referencing this CVE — pulled from our cve_vendor_advisories aggregation. Click any row for the vendor's original advisory page.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 9× in last 7d / 42× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

  1. 2026-07-15 16:55 UTCEPSS rescore
  2. 2026-07-15 16:55 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-07-15 01:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-07-15 01:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-07-13 22:27 UTCEPSS rescore
  6. 2026-07-13 22:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  7. 2026-07-12 05:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-07-11 08:24 UTCEPSS rescore
  9. 2026-07-09 19:06 UTCEPSS rescore
  10. 2026-07-08 15:11 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-07-07 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  12. 2026-07-07 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  13. 2026-07-06 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
  14. 2026-07-06 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
  15. 2026-07-05 02:27 UTCEPSS rescore
  16. 2026-07-04 06:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-07-04 06:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  18. 2026-07-03 23:56 UTCOSV refresh
  19. 2026-07-02 16:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-07-01 15:03 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-07-01 15:03 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-06-30 23:20 UTCEPSS rescore
  23. 2026-06-30 23:19 UTCEPSS rescore
  24. 2026-06-28 04:53 UTCEPSS rescore
  25. 2026-06-28 04:53 UTCEPSS rescore
Show 53 more
  1. 2026-06-27 03:06 UTCEPSS rescore
  2. 2026-06-27 03:06 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  6. 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  7. 2026-06-23 21:30 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-06-23 21:30 UTCEPSS rescore
  9. 2026-06-23 21:30 UTCEPSS rescore
  10. 2026-06-22 14:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-06-19 19:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  12. 2026-06-18 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  13. 2026-06-18 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  14. 2026-06-17 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  15. 2026-06-17 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  16. 2026-06-16 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-06-16 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
  18. 2026-06-15 17:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  19. 2026-06-15 11:43 UTCOSV refresh
  20. 2026-06-13 22:58 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-06-13 22:58 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-06-12 23:09 UTCEPSS rescore
  23. 2026-06-11 13:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  24. 2026-06-10 22:16 UTCEPSS rescore
  25. 2026-06-10 13:19 UTCEPSS rescore
  26. 2026-06-07 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  27. 2026-06-07 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  28. 2026-06-06 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  29. 2026-06-06 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  30. 2026-06-05 22:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  31. 2026-06-05 22:44 UTCEPSS rescore
  32. 2026-06-05 06:08 UTCEPSS rescore
  33. 2026-06-05 06:08 UTCEPSS rescore
  34. 2026-06-04 13:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  35. 2026-06-04 13:10 UTCEPSS rescore
  36. 2026-06-02 20:11 UTCEPSS rescore
  37. 2026-06-02 20:11 UTCEPSS rescore
  38. 2026-05-31 22:29 UTCEPSS rescore
  39. 2026-05-31 22:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  40. 2026-05-31 00:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  41. 2026-05-31 00:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  42. 2026-05-29 13:41 UTCEPSS rescore
  43. 2026-05-28 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  44. 2026-05-28 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  45. 2026-05-28 02:07 UTCEG score recompute
  46. 2026-05-28 02:07 UTCVendor advisory
  47. 2026-05-28 02:06 UTCGHSA enrichment
  48. 2026-05-27 13:38 UTCEPSS rescore
  49. 2026-05-27 13:38 UTCEPSS rescore
  50. 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  51. 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
  52. 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
  53. 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore

Publicly available exploits

(2 references)

Working exploit code is in the public domain (1 GitHub PoC) (1 Exploit-DB entry). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly — public PoCs typically lead to mass-exploitation within 24-72 hours.

  • GitHub PoCmatlink/CVE-2018-17961
    First seen Nov 1, 2018
    Open source ↗
  • Exploit-DBEDB-45573✓ verified
    First seen Oct 9, 2018

    ghostscript - executeonly Bypass with errorhandler Setup

    Open source ↗

Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2018-17961?
CVE-2018-17961 is a high vulnerability published on October 15, 2018. Artifex Ghostscript 9.25 and earlier allows attackers to bypass a sandbox protection mechanism via vectors involving errorhandler setup. NOTE: this issue exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2018-17183.
When was CVE-2018-17961 disclosed?
CVE-2018-17961 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on October 15, 2018, with the most recent update on November 21, 2024. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2018-17961 actively exploited?
CVE-2018-17961 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 95.1% percentile likelihood of exploitation in the next 30 days — higher percentiles indicate greater predicted risk.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2018-17961?
CVE-2018-17961 has a CVSS v3 base score of 8.6 (NVD).
How do I remediate CVE-2018-17961?
Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2018-17961, EchelonGraph cross-links them in the Vendor Advisories panel below — those typically contain the canonical remediation steps, fixed version numbers, and any vendor-specific mitigations.

Dependency Blast Radius

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