Skip to content
Fencer Intel
high 7.3

CVE-2019-3838 json

It was found that the forceput operator could be extracted from the DefineResource method in ghostscript before 9.27.

published 7y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2019-13458

cvss
7.3
version 3.0, CNA
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

It was found that the forceput operator could be extracted from the DefineResource method in ghostscript before 9.27. A specially crafted PostScript file could use this flaw in order to, for example, have access to the file system outside of the constrains imposed by -dSAFER.

Patch / fix

  • artifex ghostscript 9.27
  • ghostscript Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 9.27~dfsg-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2019-3838

  • ghostscript Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 9.26~dfsg+0-0ubuntu0.14.04.8
  • ghostscript Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 9.26~dfsg+0-0ubuntu0.16.04.8
  • ghostscript Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 9.26~dfsg+0-0ubuntu0.18.04.8

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2019-3838

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 8 9.25-2.el8_0.1
  • libgs RHEL 8 9.25-2.el8_0.1
  • ghostscript-x11 RHEL 8 9.25-2.el8_0.1
  • ghostscript-tools-fonts RHEL 8 9.25-2.el8_0.1
  • ghostscript-tools-dvipdf RHEL 8 9.25-2.el8_0.1
  • ghostscript-tools-printing RHEL 8 9.25-2.el8_0.1
  • ghostscript RHEL 7 9.07-31.el7_6.10
  • ghostscript-gtk RHEL 7 9.07-31.el7_6.10

red hat advisories RHSA-2019:0971RHSA-2019:0633

  • ghostscript-library SLES 11 SP4-LTSS, SLE Point of Sale 11 SP3 8.62-47.16.1
  • ghostscript SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES for SAP 12 SP2 +13 more 9.26a-23.22.1
  • ghostscript SLE Module for Basesystem 15 9.26a-3.15.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2019:14155-1SUSE-SU-2019:0719-1SUSE-SU-2019:0718-1

  • ghostscript openSUSE Tumbleweed 9.54.0-2.2
  • ghostscript openSUSE Leap 15.0 9.26a-lp150.2.17.2
  • ghostscript-mini openSUSE Leap 15.0 9.26a-lp150.2.17.2

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10783-1openSUSE-SU-2019:1121-1

  • ghostscript Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +16 more 9.26-r2

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2019-3838

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • ghostscript Arch Linux 9.27-1

arch linux advisories AVG-929

Is CVE-2019-3838 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

Check with Fencer

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-2019-3838 updated cvss 7.3

ghostscript: forceput in DefineResource is still accessible (700576)

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 ghostscript Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 ghostscript, ghostscript-gtk
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Please refer to the "Mitigation" section of CVE-2018-16509 : https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2018-16509”
  • Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder (v. 8) ghostscript-x11 9.25-2.el8_0.1, ghostscript-tools-fonts 9.25-2.el8_0.1, ghostscript-tools-dvipdf 9.25-2.el8_0.1, ghostscript-tools-printing 9.25-2.el8_0.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 8) libgs 9.25-2.el8_0.1, ghostscript 9.25-2.el8_0.1
    fixed: vendor fix “Please refer to the "Mitigation" section of CVE-2018-16509 : https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2018-16509” RHSA-2019:0971
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-31.el7_6.10, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.10 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.10 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-31.el7_6.10, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.10 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.10 Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM and IBM Power LE (POWER9) Server (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-31.el7_6.10, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.10 Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM and IBM Power LE (POWER9) Server Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.10
    +4 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-31.el7_6.10, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.10 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.10 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-31.el7_6.10, ghostscript-cups 9.07-31.el7_6.10 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-31.el7_6.10
    fixed: vendor fix “Please refer to the "Mitigation" section of CVE-2018-16509 : https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2018-16509” RHSA-2019:0633

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).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.0 7.3 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/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

Affected products

  • The ghostscript Project ghostscript

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-648 Incorrect Use of Privileged APIs

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.