Skip to content
Fencer Intel
high 7.8

CVE-2020-21890 json

Buffer Overflow vulnerability in clj_media_size function in devices/gdevclj.c in Artifex Ghostscript 9.50 allows remote attackers to cause…

published 3y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2020-14656

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.8%
EPSS 0.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 57%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Buffer Overflow vulnerability in clj_media_size function in devices/gdevclj.c in Artifex Ghostscript 9.50 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or other unspecified impact(s) via opening of crafted PDF document.

Patch / fix

  • ghostscript Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 9.51~dfsg-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-21890

  • ghostscript Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 9.50~dfsg-5ubuntu4.10
  • ghostscript Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 9.26~dfsg+0-0ubuntu0.16.04.14+esm7
  • ghostscript Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS 9.26~dfsg+0-0ubuntu0.18.04.18+esm2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2020-21890

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

Is CVE-2020-21890 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-2020-21890 updated cvss 5.3

ghostscript: Heap buffer overflow in clj_media_size function in devices/gdevclj.c

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 ghostscript, ghostscript-gtk Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 libgs, ghostscript, ghostscript-gtk, ghostscript-cups
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 libgs, ghostscript, ghostscript-x11, ghostscript-tools-fonts, ghostscript-tools-dvipdf, ghostscript-tools-printing
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 libgs, ghostscript, ghostscript-x11, ghostscript-tools-fonts, ghostscript-tools-dvipdf, ghostscript-tools-printing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 libgs, ghostscript, ghostscript-x11, ghostscript-tools-fonts, ghostscript-tools-dvipdf, ghostscript-tools-printing
    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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
2y ago

Exploit prediction

0.81% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 57% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • bugs.ghostscript.com https://bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi?id=701846 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

Classification

Weakness

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.