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Fencer Intel
medium 6.5

CVE-2017-14604 json

GNOME Nautilus before 3.23.90 allows attackers to spoof a file type by using the .desktop file extension, as demonstrated by an attack in w…

published 2017-09-20 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-6105

cvss
6.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.5%
EPSS 2.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 84%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

GNOME Nautilus before 3.23.90 allows attackers to spoof a file type by using the .desktop file extension, as demonstrated by an attack in which a .desktop file's Name field ends in .pdf but this file's Exec field launches a malicious "sh -c" command. In other words, Nautilus provides no UI indication that a file actually has the potentially unsafe .desktop extension; instead, the UI only shows the .pdf extension. One (slightly) mitigating factor is that an attack requires the .desktop file to have execute permission. The solution is to ask the user to confirm that the file is supposed to be treated as a .desktop file, and then remember the user's answer in the metadata::trusted field.

Patch / fix

  • gnome nautilus 3.23.90
  • nautilus Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 3.25.90-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-14604

  • nautilus RHEL 7 3.22.3-4.el7_4
  • nautilus-extensions RHEL 7 3.22.3-4.el7_4

red hat advisories RHSA-2018:0223

  • nautilus SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES 12 SP3, SLED 12 SP3 +2 more 3.20.3-23.3.14
  • nautilus SLES for SAP 11 SP4, SLES 11 SP4, SLE Software Development Kit 11 SP4 2.28.4-1.16.21.3.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2018:2058-1SUSE-SU-2018:1694-1

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-2017-14604 updated cvss 4.8

nautilus: Insufficient validation of trust of .desktop files with execute permission

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 nautilus Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 nautilus, nautilus-extensions
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) nautilus 3.22.3-4.el7_4, nautilus-extensions 3.22.3-4.el7_4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) nautilus-devel 3.22.3-4.el7_4, nautilus-debuginfo 3.22.3-4.el7_4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM and IBM Power LE (POWER9) Server (v. 7) nautilus 3.22.3-4.el7_4, nautilus-extensions 3.22.3-4.el7_4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM and IBM Power LE (POWER9) Server Optional (v. 7) nautilus-devel 3.22.3-4.el7_4, nautilus-debuginfo 3.22.3-4.el7_4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) nautilus 3.22.3-4.el7_4, nautilus-extensions 3.22.3-4.el7_4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) nautilus-devel 3.22.3-4.el7_4, nautilus-debuginfo 3.22.3-4.el7_4
    +2 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) nautilus 3.22.3-4.el7_4, nautilus-extensions 3.22.3-4.el7_4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) nautilus-devel 3.22.3-4.el7_4, nautilus-debuginfo 3.22.3-4.el7_4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:0223

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

2.47% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 84% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • micahflee.com https://micahflee.com/2017/04/breaking-the-security-model-of-subgraph-os/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
NVD 2.0 4.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

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.