Skip to content
Noroxi
NVD / CVE Program· CNA mitre

CVE-2020-15900: A memory corruption issue was found in Artifex Ghostscript 9.50 and 9.52.

CriticalCVSS 9.8 · v3.1—No exploit Fix available

Noroxi assessment

Priority: Plan (action score 41/100)

  • The sources we track (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei, GitHub) show no public exploit code or exploitation in the wild.
  • Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days: 5.1% (FIRST EPSS); higher than 92.5% of all records.
  • Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it. No account or password is required. No user action is required. No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
  • Fixed version: ghostscript (Alpine:v3.11) 9.50-r1; ghostscript (Alpine:v3.12) 9.52-r1; ghostscript (Debian:12) 9.52.1~dfsg-1.

Add it to your regular patch cycle. Upgrade to ghostscript (Alpine:v3.11) 9.50-r1; ghostscript (Alpine:v3.12) 9.52-r1; ghostscript (Debian:12) 9.52.1~dfsg-1 or later.

Generated automatically from the record's data: CVSS (NVD and CNA), CISA KEV and SSVC, FIRST EPSS, exploit sources, fixed versions. How we calculate it

Primary sources: NVD · CVE.org · FIRST EPSS

A memory corruption issue was found in Artifex Ghostscript 9.50 and 9.52. Use of a non-standard PostScript operator can allow overriding of file access controls. The 'rsearch' calculation for the 'post' size resulted in a size that was too large, and could underflow to max uint32_t. This was fixed in commit 5d499272b95a6b890a1397e11d20937de000d31b.

Published
Jul 28, 2020
Updated
Jun 16, 2026
EPSS
5.1% · 92th percentile

Report tools

JSON

Action score

41

Plan

Add it to your regular patch cycle.

CVSS
39 / 40 · 9.8 / 10
CISA KEV
0 / 30 · Not listed
EPSS
2 / 30 · 5.1%

Get told when this record changes

  • Not in KEV: no record of exploitation in the wild
  • No public exploit code on record
  • A fix has been released

If any of these changes, we'll tell you in the daily email digest.

Follow CVE-2020-15900

When you'll hear from us

  • when it enters CISA KEV
  • when exploit code appears or is weaponized
  • when the record is updated (including a fixed version)
  • when EPSS rises 20 points in a week

One daily email digest (06:00 UTC); connect a webhook for KEV listings and weaponized exploits every 10 minutes on paid plans, on the hour on the free plan.

Your free account also gets you

  • CVE alerts: add the products and versions you run, get the new CVEs that affect them
  • Uptime monitoring: 1 site, instant email when it goes down
  • Add your domain: subdomains and takeover risk scanned every week (1 domain)
  • 10 scans an hour on the security tools, at most 30 a day (3 a day without an account), an API key and MCP
  • All your scans in one panel: findings, what changed in the last scan, a report per domain or per client (PDF, share link)
All free tools

Sign up with email · Have an account? Sign in

Free account, no card. Unfollow any time.

Don't want an account? Get "Exploited this week" by email every MondayDon't want an account? RSS feed for artifex records
Is your version affected? Check it

Noroxi analysis

What does it mean in your environment?

The assessment above is generated automatically from the record's data; it doesn't know your environment. Our team verifies on your systems whether this vulnerability is actually exploitable and which mitigation is enough.

We use this product, ask for help

Affected systems

Is your version affected?

Pick the product and type the version you run. It's compared with this record's version ranges in your browser; the version isn't sent anywhere.

VendorProduct
artifexghostscript
canonicalubuntu linux
opensuseleap

Affected versions

NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.

  • artifex ghostscript9.50
  • artifex ghostscript9.52
  • canonical ubuntu linux20.04
  • opensuse leap15.1
  • opensuse leap15.2

Package-level exposure

OSV and GitHub Advisory data: ecosystem, package and range. SBOM matching uses this table.

EcosystemPackageAffected rangeFix
Alpine:v3.11ghostscriptbefore 9.50-r19.50-r1
Alpine:v3.12ghostscriptbefore 9.52-r19.52-r1
Debian:12ghostscriptbefore 9.52.1~dfsg-19.52.1~dfsg-1
openSUSE:Leap 15.1ghostscriptbefore 9.52-lp151.3.15.19.52-lp151.3.15.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.1ghostscript-minibefore 9.52-lp151.3.15.19.52-lp151.3.15.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.2ghostscriptbefore 9.52-lp152.2.4.19.52-lp152.2.4.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.2ghostscript-minibefore 9.52-lp152.2.4.19.52-lp152.2.4.1
SUSE:HPE Helion OpenStack 8ghostscriptbefore 9.52-23.39.19.52-23.39.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP1ghostscriptbefore 9.52-3.32.19.52-3.32.1

Same product

artifex: all records

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

  • CVE-2017-8291Artifex Ghostscript through 2017-04-26 allows -dSAFER bypass and remote command execution via .rsdparams type confusion with a "/OutputFile…KEV
    90Now
  • CVE-2021-3781A trivial sandbox (enabled with the `-dSAFER` option) escape flaw was found in the ghostscript interpreter by injecting a specially crafted…
    64This week
  • CVE-2016-7976The PS Interpreter in Ghostscript 9.18 and 9.20 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via crafted userparams.
    60This week

Published before and after this one in the same product

  • ← EarlierCVE-2019-10216Nov 27, 2019 · In ghostscript before version 9.50, the .buildfont1 procedure did not properly secure its privileged calls, enabling scripts to bypass…
    32Monitor
  • ← EarlierCVE-2019-14812Nov 27, 2019 · A flaw was found in all ghostscript versions 9.x before 9.50, in the .setuserparams2 procedure where it did not properly secure its…
    32Monitor
  • Later →CVE-2020-16287Aug 12, 2020 · A buffer overflow vulnerability in lprn_is_black() in contrib/lips4/gdevlprn.c of Artifex Software GhostScript v9.50 allows a remote…
    23Monitor

Remediation

Which version to upgrade to

Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.

Product / packageFixed versionSource
alpine:ghostscript9.50-r1 · Alpine:v3.11Package registry (OSV)
debian:ghostscript9.52.1~dfsg-1 · Debian:12Package registry (OSV)
opensuse:ghostscript9.52-lp151.3.15.1 · openSUSE:Leap 15.1Package registry (OSV)
opensuse:ghostscript-mini9.52-lp151.3.15.1 · openSUSE:Leap 15.1Package registry (OSV)
suse:ghostscript9.52-3.32.1 · SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP1Package registry (OSV)

Exploit status

No known public exploit

No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.

Research context

For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.

Timeline

From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.

No dated events beyond publication.

Patch and commit links

Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.

Not on record for this CVE: EPSS history · researcher credit · variant or chain candidate · public bounty program.

Technical details

Attack conditions

  • Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it.
  • No account or password is required.
  • No user action is required.
  • No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.

If successful

Confidentiality
high · data can be read
Integrity
high · data or configuration can be modified
Availability
high · the service can be disrupted
Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality impact
High
Integrity impact
High
Availability impact
High

Weakness class (CWE)

CWE-191 · Integer Underflow (Wrap or Wraparound)

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

nvd-primary

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.

MITRE has no CAPEC/ATT&CK mapping for this CWE.

References

Show all references (8 more)

Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.

All records