CVE 2026 101258

A flaw was found in Ghostscript. When Ghostscript renders a crafted PostScript or EPS document, it can bypass the -dSAFER sandbox and execute arbitrary shell commands in the context of the Ghostscript process. The issue chains memory corruption in document parsing with disabling of internal path access controls at runtime. An attacker can deliver the document directly or through formats that delegate rendering to Ghostscript (for example EPS import or print conversion workflows). Successful exploitation can compromise confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data accessible to the process running Ghostscript.

This vulnerability is rated Important severity because a crafted document can achieve arbitrary command execution when Ghostscript processes it, including when the -dSAFER sandbox flag is enabled. Exploitation requires the victim or an application to process attacker-controlled content locally; it is not a remote network attack against a listening Ghostscript service. In typical desktop and document-conversion scenarios, user interaction is required to open or convert the file.

Ghostscript runs as an unprivileged user in most deployments, but commands still run with that user's privileges. SELinux targeted policy in enforcing mode did not prevent exploitation for common domains that run gs directly (for example unconfined_t and initrc_t in Red Hat testing). Some confined domains may limit follow-on file writes depending on policy; there is no Ghostscript-specific SELinux domain. Blocking ImageMagick's Ghostscript delegate via policy.xml is not a practical workaround on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, 9, or 10 because the ImageMagick RPM is not shipped on those releases.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 ships Ghostscript 10.02.1 and is affected; command execution under -dSAFER was confirmed on RHEL 10.2 x86_64 lab systems. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (Ghostscript 9.54.0) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (Ghostscript 9.27) ship older upstream lines; impact on those releases is still under analysis relative to the public proof of concept, which targets the 10.x series. Red Hat In-Vehicle OS and Fedora ship Ghostscript builds that are being tracked under the same flaw. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and 7 Extended Life Cycle Support include Ghostscript packages; affectedness is not yet resolved for those streams.

No mitigation is currently available that meets Red Hat Product Security's standards for usability, deployment, applicability, or stability.

Bugzilla 2542396 : ghostscript: ghostscript: -dSAFER sandbox bypass via Type 5 shading OOB write and procedure-stream use-after-free

CWE-787 : Out-of-bounds Write

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert: Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications ).

The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Red Hat CVSS v3 Score Explanation

Local file parser vuln (AV:L), reliable exploitation (AC:L), no privs needed (PR:N), user must open/process file (UI:R), same security authority (S:U), full code execution (C:H/I:H/A:H)

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Technical Impact: Modify Memory; Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands

Write operations could cause memory corruption. In some cases, an adversary can modify control data such as return addresses in order to execute unexpected code.

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart

Attempting to access out-of-range, invalid, or unauthorized memory could cause the product to crash.

Technical Impact: Unexpected State

Subsequent write operations can produce undefined or unexpected results.

Red Hat would like to thank Akiyoshi Kurita and V12 Security (V12 Security) for reporting this issue.

Frequently Asked Questions

"Under investigation" doesn't necessarily mean that the product is affected by this vulnerability. It only means that our Analysis Team is still working on determining whether the product is affected and how it is affected.

The term 'Affected' means that our Analysis team has determined that this product, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 or OpenShift Container Platform 4, is affected by this vulnerability and a fix may be released to address this issue in the near future. This includes all minor releases of this product unless noted otherwise in the Statement text.

Upgrade to a supported product version that includes a fix for this vulnerability (recommended).

Apply a mitigation (if one exists).

Customers with the Technical Account Manager (TAM) RHEL Security Select Add-on can review this CVE directly with their TAM.

Apply a mitigation (if one exists).

Red Hat Engineering focuses on addressing high-priority issues based on the impact and product lifecycle expectations. Therefore, lower-priority issues will not receive immediate fixes.

Customers with the technical account manager (TAM) RHEL Security Select Add-on can review this CVE directly with their TAM.

Not sure what something means? Check out our Security Glossary .

For clarification or corrections, please Red Hat Product Security .