Skip to content
Fencer Intel
medium 5.5

CVE-2016-7977 json

Ghostscript before 9.21 might allow remote attackers to bypass the SAFER mode protection mechanism and consequently read arbitrary files vi…

published 2017-05-23 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2016-8825

cvss
5.5
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
4.6%
EPSS 4.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 91%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Ghostscript before 9.21 might allow remote attackers to bypass the SAFER mode protection mechanism and consequently read arbitrary files via the use of the .libfile operator in a crafted postscript document.

Patch / fix

  • ghostscript Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 9.19~dfsg-3.1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2016-7977

  • ghostscript Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 9.10~dfsg-0ubuntu10.5
  • ghostscript Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 9.18~dfsg~0-0ubuntu2.2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2016-7977

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • ghostscript RHEL 6 8.70-21.el6_8.1
  • ghostscript-gtk RHEL 6 8.70-21.el6_8.1
  • ghostscript RHEL 7 9.07-20.el7_3.1
  • ghostscript-gtk RHEL 7 9.07-20.el7_3.1
  • ghostscript-cups RHEL 7 9.07-20.el7_3.1

red hat advisories RHSA-2017:0014RHSA-2017:0013

  • ghostscript-library SLES for SAP 11 SP4, SLES 11 SP4, SLES 11 SP3-TERADATA +7 more 8.62-32.38.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2016:2493-1

  • ghostscript openSUSE Tumbleweed 9.20-2.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10003-1

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-2016-7977 updated cvss 6.2

ghostscript: .libfile does not honor -dSAFER

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 ghostscript Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise 2 ghostscript
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-20.el7_3.1, ghostscript-cups 9.07-20.el7_3.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-20.el7_3.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-20.el7_3.1, ghostscript-cups 9.07-20.el7_3.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-20.el7_3.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:0013
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 6) ghostscript 8.70-21.el6_8.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop Optional (v. 6) ghostscript-gtk 8.70-21.el6_8.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux HPC Node (v. 6) ghostscript 8.70-21.el6_8.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux HPC Node Optional (v. 6) ghostscript-gtk 8.70-21.el6_8.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 6) ghostscript 8.70-21.el6_8.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:0014
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-20.el7_3.1, ghostscript-cups 9.07-20.el7_3.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:0013
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 6) ghostscript-gtk 8.70-21.el6_8.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:0014
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-20.el7_3.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:0013
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 6) ghostscript 8.70-21.el6_8.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:0014
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-20.el7_3.1, ghostscript-cups 9.07-20.el7_3.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:0013
show 2 more
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 6) ghostscript-gtk 8.70-21.el6_8.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:0014
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-20.el7_3.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:0013

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

4.57% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 91% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 5.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-200 Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor

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.