CVE-2023-28879

CRITICALNVD 9.89.8—
EchelonGraph scoreMEDIUM confidence

Score 9.8 from GitHub Security Advisory (severity: CRITICAL) published 2023-03-31. NVD baseline CVSS 9.8; sources differ by 0.0.

Triggered by: GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
Sources: epss, ghsa, nvd
Elevated
9.8EG
EchelonGraph verdictPlan a fixSerious severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet.
  • High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS PROB: 6%CVSS: 9.8Exploit: Elevated riskExposed: 0

A fix is available — apply it.

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 v3
9.8
EG Score
9.8(medium)
EG Risk
75(Attend)
EG Risk 75/100SSVC: Attend

EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).

How it’s computed
Severity98% × 45%
Exploitation40% × 40%
Automatability100% × 15%
Action: Remediate soon — notable exploitation risk.
EPSS PROB
6%
EPSS %ILE
93%
KEV
Not listed

Published

March 31, 2023

Last Modified

February 14, 2025

Advisory Details (9)

Auto-updated Sep 3, 2026
🔬 Proof of concept available. Patch available.
generic

[SECURITY] [DSA 5383-1] ghostscript security update

https://www.debian.org/security/2023/dsa-5383
generic

GPL Ghostscript: Multiple Vulnerabilities (GLSA 202309-03) — Gentoo security

https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202309-03
generic

[SECURITY] Fedora 36 Update: ghostscript-9.56.1-7.fc36 - package-announce - Fedora mailing-lists

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/MADLP3GWJFLLFVNZGEDNPMDQR6CCXAHN/
generic

[SECURITY] Fedora 37 Update: ghostscript-9.56.1-7.fc37 - package-announce - Fedora mailing-lists

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/CI6UCKM3XMK7PYNIRGAVDJ5VKN6XYZOE/
generic Patch Available

[SECURITY] [DLA 3381-1] ghostscript security update

https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/04/msg00003.html
generic

News — Ghostscript 10.09.0 documentation

https://ghostscript.readthedocs.io/en/latest/News.html
generic Patch Available🟡 PoC Available

706494 – Buffer Overflow in s_xBCPE_process

https://bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi?id=706494
generic

oss-security - Ghostscript CVE-2023-28879: "Shell in the Ghost"

http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/04/12/4
generic

[SECURITY] Fedora 38 Update: ghostscript-10.01.0-3.fc38 - package-announce - Fedora mailing-lists

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/DHJX62KSRIOBZA6FKONMJP7MEFY7LTH2/

Patch Availability(4)

Vendor / EcosystemFixed in / PatchReleasedSource
ubuntulibgs9-common (9.26~dfsg+0-0ubuntu0.18.04.18) @ bionic2026-05-25ubuntu
ubuntulibgs9-common (10.0.0~dfsg1-0ubuntu1.1) @ lunar2026-05-25ubuntu
redhatghostscript-0:9.27-11.el82023-11-14redhat
redhatghostscript-0:9.54.0-13.el92023-11-07redhat

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.

Affected Packages

(9 across 9 ecosystems)
Alpine:v3.14(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
ghostscript—9.54.0-r2—
Alpine:v3.15(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
ghostscript—9.55.0-r1—
Alpine:v3.16(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
ghostscript—9.56.1-r1—
Alpine:v3.17(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
ghostscript—10.0.0-r1—
Debian:10(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
ghostscript9.27~dfsg-2 ... 9.27~dfsg-2+deb10u6 (7 versions)9.27~dfsg-2+deb10u7—
Debian:11(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
ghostscript9.53.3~dfsg-7, 9.53.3~dfsg-7+deb11u1, 9.53.3~dfsg-7+deb11u2, 9.53.3~dfsg-7+deb11u39.53.3~dfsg-7+deb11u4—
Debian:12(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
ghostscript—10.0.0~dfsg-11—
Debian:13(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
ghostscript—10.0.0~dfsg-11—
Debian:14(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
ghostscript—10.0.0~dfsg-11—

Weakness Classification(1)

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

All Vendor Advisories

(4)

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 8× in last 7d / 29× 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.

Showing the most recent 100 of 148 total refreshes for this CVE.

  1. 2026-09-08 21:57 UTCEPSS rescore
  2. 2026-09-07 15:59 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-09-06 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-09-05 15:25 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-09-04 13:58 UTCEPSS rescore
  6. 2026-09-04 11:16 UTCOSV refresh
  7. 2026-09-04 05:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-09-02 14:09 UTCEPSS rescore
  9. 2026-09-01 13:51 UTCEPSS rescore
  10. 2026-08-30 19:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-08-30 01:19 UTCEPSS rescore
  12. 2026-08-28 21:38 UTCEPSS rescore
  13. 2026-08-27 14:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  14. 2026-08-26 14:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  15. 2026-08-25 13:46 UTCEPSS rescore
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  17. 2026-08-23 00:17 UTCEPSS rescore
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  19. 2026-08-20 22:53 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-08-19 17:02 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-08-18 13:46 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-08-17 21:59 UTCOSV refresh
  23. 2026-08-17 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
  24. 2026-08-16 14:53 UTCEPSS rescore
  25. 2026-08-16 02:12 UTCEPSS rescore
Show 75 more
  1. 2026-08-15 01:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  2. 2026-08-13 21:58 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-08-12 13:48 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-08-11 13:39 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-08-09 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
  6. 2026-08-08 16:34 UTCEPSS rescore
  7. 2026-08-07 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-08-06 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
  9. 2026-08-05 19:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  10. 2026-08-05 19:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-08-04 15:07 UTCEPSS rescore
  12. 2026-08-04 10:35 UTCEPSS rescore
  13. 2026-08-03 10:34 UTCEPSS rescore
  14. 2026-08-02 17:27 UTCOSV refresh
  15. 2026-08-02 02:25 UTCEPSS rescore
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  17. 2026-08-01 04:13 UTCEPSS rescore
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  19. 2026-07-30 16:26 UTCEPSS rescore
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  21. 2026-07-30 01:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-07-30 01:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  23. 2026-07-28 15:34 UTCEPSS rescore
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  25. 2026-07-26 14:52 UTCEPSS rescore
  26. 2026-07-26 14:52 UTCEPSS rescore
  27. 2026-07-25 14:16 UTCEPSS rescore
  28. 2026-07-24 14:15 UTCEPSS rescore
  29. 2026-07-23 14:16 UTCEPSS rescore
  30. 2026-07-23 14:16 UTCEPSS rescore
  31. 2026-07-23 02:21 UTCEG score recompute
  32. 2026-07-22 23:09 UTCEG score recompute
  33. 2026-07-22 14:06 UTCEPSS rescore
  34. 2026-07-22 14:06 UTCEPSS rescore
  35. 2026-07-21 15:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  36. 2026-07-20 17:06 UTCEPSS rescore
  37. 2026-07-19 14:29 UTCEPSS rescore
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  39. 2026-07-19 02:27 UTCEPSS rescore
  40. 2026-07-19 02:27 UTCEPSS rescore
  41. 2026-07-18 10:03 UTCEPSS rescore
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  43. 2026-07-16 17:01 UTCEPSS rescore
  44. 2026-07-16 17:01 UTCEPSS rescore
  45. 2026-07-16 01:19 UTCOSV refresh
  46. 2026-07-15 16:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  47. 2026-07-15 16:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  48. 2026-07-15 01:58 UTCEPSS rescore
  49. 2026-07-15 01:58 UTCEPSS rescore
  50. 2026-07-13 22:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  51. 2026-07-13 22:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  52. 2026-07-13 06:11 UTCEPSS rescore
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  54. 2026-07-12 05:45 UTCEPSS rescore
  55. 2026-07-11 08:25 UTCEPSS rescore
  56. 2026-07-11 08:25 UTCEPSS rescore
  57. 2026-07-09 19:08 UTCEPSS rescore
  58. 2026-07-09 19:08 UTCEPSS rescore
  59. 2026-07-08 15:13 UTCEPSS rescore
  60. 2026-07-07 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
  61. 2026-07-06 16:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  62. 2026-07-06 16:26 UTCEPSS rescore
  63. 2026-07-05 02:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  64. 2026-07-04 06:29 UTCEPSS rescore
  65. 2026-07-02 16:59 UTCEPSS rescore
  66. 2026-07-01 15:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  67. 2026-06-30 23:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  68. 2026-06-30 23:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  69. 2026-06-29 14:05 UTCEPSS rescore
  70. 2026-06-28 04:54 UTCEPSS rescore
  71. 2026-06-28 01:34 UTCOSV refresh
  72. 2026-06-27 03:07 UTCEPSS rescore
  73. 2026-06-25 13:48 UTCEPSS rescore
  74. 2026-06-25 13:48 UTCEPSS rescore
  75. 2026-06-24 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore

Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2023-28879?
CVE-2023-28879 is a critical vulnerability published on March 31, 2023. 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…
When was CVE-2023-28879 disclosed?
CVE-2023-28879 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on March 31, 2023, with the most recent update on February 14, 2025. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2023-28879 actively exploited?
CVE-2023-28879 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 6% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, which ranks it in the top 6.8% of all scored CVEs.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2023-28879?
CVE-2023-28879 has a CVSS v3 base score of 9.8 (NVD).
How do I remediate CVE-2023-28879?
Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2023-28879, 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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