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Fencer Intel
high 7.8

CVE-2012-2142 json

The error function in Error.cc in poppler before 0.21.4 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands via a PDF containing an escap…

published 2020-01-09 6 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2012-2139

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.9%
EPSS 2.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 87%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The error function in Error.cc in poppler before 0.21.4 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands via a PDF containing an escape sequence for a terminal emulator.

Patch / fix

  • freedesktop poppler 0.21.4
  • poppler Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 0.18.4-7

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2012-2142

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2012-2142 updated cvss 2.6

xpdf: Insufficient sanitization of escape sequences in the error messages

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 poppler Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 poppler, poppler-qt, poppler-qt4, poppler-glib, poppler-utils
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 poppler, poppler-qt, poppler-cpp, poppler-glib, poppler-demos, poppler-utils
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

2.94% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 87% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • openwall.com http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2013/08/09/6 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • openwall.com http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2013/08/09/5 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Affected products

  • poppler poppler

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.