CVE-2017-8291

CRITICALNVD 7.89.0▲
EchelonGraph scoreHIGH confidence

Score elevated to 9.0 because this CVE is listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-05-24), indicating real-world exploitation has been confirmed by US federal agencies. NVD baseline CVSS 7.8 retained for reference. Confidence: HIGH.

Triggered by: CISA KEV (actively exploited)
Sources: cisa_kev, epss, ghsa, nvd
Trending — 5 sources updated this weekExploited in the wild
9.0EG
EchelonGraph verdictPatch nowTreat as an emergency — this is being exploited.
  • Actively exploited in the wild (CISA-KEV)
CISA-KEV: ExploitedEPSS PROB: 96%CVSS: 7.8Exploit: cisa kev · ssvc active · Metasploit · Exploit-DB (verified) · epss top5pct · epss high · public exploitExposed: 0

A fix is available — apply it.

Artifex Ghostscript through 2017-04-26 allows -dSAFER bypass and remote command execution via .rsdparams type confusion with a "/OutputFile (%pipe%" substring in a crafted .eps document that is an input to the gs program, as exploited in the wild in April 2017.

CVSS v3
7.8
EG Score
9.0(high)
EG Risk
81(Attend)
EG Risk 81/100SSVC: Attend

EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).

How it’s computed
Severity90% × 45%
Exploitation100% × 40%
Automatability0% × 15%
Action: Remediate soon — notable exploitation risk.
EPSS PROB
96%
EPSS %ILE
100%
KEV
⚠ Exploited

Published

April 27, 2017

Last Modified

April 21, 2026

Advisory Details (8)

Auto-updated May 19, 2026
🔬 Proof of concept available. Patch available. Sources: redhat.
generic🟡 PoC Available

Ghostscript 9.21 - Type Confusion Arbitrary Command Execution (Metasploit) - Linux local Exploit

https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/41955/
generic

GPL Ghostscript: Multiple vulnerabilities (GLSA 201708-06) — Gentoo security

https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201708-06
generic

1036453 – (CVE-2017-8291) VUL-0: CVE-2017-8291: ghostscript,ghostscript-library: Artifex Ghostscript through 2017-04-26 allows -dSAFER bypass and remotecommand execution via a "/Ou...

https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1036453
redhat Patch Available

1446063 – (CVE-2017-8291) CVE-2017-8291 ghostscript: corruption of operand stack

Affected: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1446063
generic

697808 – %pipe% security issue

https://bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi?id=697808
generic
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/98476
generic

[SECURITY] [DSA 3838-1] ghostscript security update

http://www.debian.org/security/2017/dsa-3838
generic

oss-security - Re: CVE-2017-8291 ghostscript remote code execution

http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/04/28/2

Patch Availability(2)

Vendor / EcosystemFixed in / PatchReleasedSource
ubuntulibgs9-common (9.19~dfsg+1-0ubuntu7.2) @ zesty2026-07-27ubuntu
redhatghostscript-0:9.07-20.el7_3.52017-05-12redhat

Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.

Weakness Classification(2)

MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.

All Vendor Advisories

(2)

Every vendor that published an advisory referencing this CVE — pulled from our cve_vendor_advisories aggregation. Click any row for the vendor's original advisory page.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 55× in last 7d / 356× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

Showing the most recent 100 of 760 total refreshes for this CVE.

  1. 2026-07-27 05:48 UTCVendor advisory
  2. 2026-07-27 05:48 UTCGHSA enrichment
  3. 2026-07-27 01:56 UTCVendor advisory
  4. 2026-07-27 01:55 UTCGHSA enrichment
  5. 2026-07-26 22:04 UTCVendor advisory
  6. 2026-07-26 22:04 UTCGHSA enrichment
  7. 2026-07-26 18:11 UTCVendor advisory
  8. 2026-07-26 18:11 UTCGHSA enrichment
  9. 2026-07-26 14:18 UTCEG score recompute
  10. 2026-07-26 14:18 UTCVendor advisory
  11. 2026-07-26 14:18 UTCGHSA enrichment
  12. 2026-07-26 10:26 UTCVendor advisory
  13. 2026-07-26 10:26 UTCGHSA enrichment
  14. 2026-07-26 06:26 UTCVendor advisory
  15. 2026-07-26 06:26 UTCGHSA enrichment
  16. 2026-07-26 02:31 UTCEG score recompute
  17. 2026-07-26 02:31 UTCVendor advisory
  18. 2026-07-26 02:31 UTCGHSA enrichment
  19. 2026-07-23 01:30 UTCEG score recompute
  20. 2026-07-22 22:10 UTCEG score recompute
  21. 2026-07-22 20:42 UTCVendor advisory
  22. 2026-07-22 20:42 UTCGHSA enrichment
  23. 2026-07-22 19:40 UTCCISA KEV update
  24. 2026-07-22 16:51 UTCVendor advisory
  25. 2026-07-22 16:51 UTCGHSA enrichment
Show 75 more
  1. 2026-07-22 12:56 UTCVendor advisory
  2. 2026-07-22 12:56 UTCGHSA enrichment
  3. 2026-07-22 09:04 UTCVendor advisory
  4. 2026-07-22 09:04 UTCGHSA enrichment
  5. 2026-07-22 05:13 UTCVendor advisory
  6. 2026-07-22 05:13 UTCGHSA enrichment
  7. 2026-07-22 00:53 UTCVendor advisory
  8. 2026-07-22 00:53 UTCGHSA enrichment
  9. 2026-07-21 17:59 UTCVendor advisory
  10. 2026-07-21 17:59 UTCGHSA enrichment
  11. 2026-07-21 14:37 UTCCISA KEV update
  12. 2026-07-21 14:08 UTCVendor advisory
  13. 2026-07-21 14:08 UTCGHSA enrichment
  14. 2026-07-21 10:16 UTCVendor advisory
  15. 2026-07-21 10:16 UTCGHSA enrichment
  16. 2026-07-21 06:24 UTCVendor advisory
  17. 2026-07-21 06:23 UTCGHSA enrichment
  18. 2026-07-21 02:31 UTCVendor advisory
  19. 2026-07-21 02:31 UTCGHSA enrichment
  20. 2026-07-20 22:36 UTCVendor advisory
  21. 2026-07-20 22:36 UTCGHSA enrichment
  22. 2026-07-20 18:44 UTCEG score recompute
  23. 2026-07-20 18:44 UTCVendor advisory
  24. 2026-07-20 18:44 UTCGHSA enrichment
  25. 2026-07-20 17:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  26. 2026-07-20 17:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  27. 2026-07-20 14:52 UTCVendor advisory
  28. 2026-07-20 14:52 UTCGHSA enrichment
  29. 2026-07-20 10:51 UTCVendor advisory
  30. 2026-07-20 10:51 UTCGHSA enrichment
  31. 2026-07-20 06:59 UTCVendor advisory
  32. 2026-07-20 06:59 UTCGHSA enrichment
  33. 2026-07-20 03:07 UTCVendor advisory
  34. 2026-07-20 03:07 UTCGHSA enrichment
  35. 2026-07-19 23:16 UTCVendor advisory
  36. 2026-07-19 23:16 UTCGHSA enrichment
  37. 2026-07-19 19:25 UTCVendor advisory
  38. 2026-07-19 19:25 UTCGHSA enrichment
  39. 2026-07-19 15:34 UTCVendor advisory
  40. 2026-07-19 15:34 UTCGHSA enrichment
  41. 2026-07-19 11:43 UTCVendor advisory
  42. 2026-07-19 11:43 UTCGHSA enrichment
  43. 2026-07-19 07:51 UTCVendor advisory
  44. 2026-07-19 07:51 UTCGHSA enrichment
  45. 2026-07-19 03:59 UTCVendor advisory
  46. 2026-07-19 03:59 UTCGHSA enrichment
  47. 2026-07-19 00:07 UTCVendor advisory
  48. 2026-07-19 00:07 UTCGHSA enrichment
  49. 2026-07-18 20:15 UTCVendor advisory
  50. 2026-07-18 20:15 UTCGHSA enrichment
  51. 2026-07-18 16:24 UTCVendor advisory
  52. 2026-07-18 16:24 UTCGHSA enrichment
  53. 2026-07-18 12:32 UTCVendor advisory
  54. 2026-07-18 12:32 UTCGHSA enrichment
  55. 2026-07-18 08:40 UTCVendor advisory
  56. 2026-07-18 08:40 UTCGHSA enrichment
  57. 2026-07-18 04:49 UTCVendor advisory
  58. 2026-07-18 04:48 UTCGHSA enrichment
  59. 2026-07-18 00:55 UTCVendor advisory
  60. 2026-07-18 00:55 UTCGHSA enrichment
  61. 2026-07-17 21:03 UTCVendor advisory
  62. 2026-07-17 21:03 UTCGHSA enrichment
  63. 2026-07-17 17:12 UTCVendor advisory
  64. 2026-07-17 17:12 UTCGHSA enrichment
  65. 2026-07-17 13:17 UTCVendor advisory
  66. 2026-07-17 13:17 UTCGHSA enrichment
  67. 2026-07-17 09:26 UTCEG score recompute
  68. 2026-07-17 09:26 UTCVendor advisory
  69. 2026-07-17 09:26 UTCGHSA enrichment
  70. 2026-07-17 05:34 UTCVendor advisory
  71. 2026-07-17 05:34 UTCGHSA enrichment
  72. 2026-07-17 01:42 UTCVendor advisory
  73. 2026-07-17 01:42 UTCGHSA enrichment
  74. 2026-07-16 21:50 UTCVendor advisory
  75. 2026-07-16 21:50 UTCGHSA enrichment

Publicly available exploits

(2 references)

Working exploit code is in the public domain (1 Metasploit module) (1 Exploit-DB entry). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly — public PoCs typically lead to mass-exploitation within 24-72 hours.

  • Exploit-DBEDB-41955✓ verified
    First seen May 2, 2017

    Ghostscript 9.21 - Type Confusion Arbitrary Command Execution (Metasploit)

    Open source ↗
  • Metasploitexploit/unix/fileformat/ghostscript_type_confusion✓ verified
    First seen Apr 27, 2017

    Ghostscript Type Confusion Arbitrary Command Execution

    Open source ↗

Related CVEs(same vendor + same CWE)

Frequently asked(6)

What is CVE-2017-8291?
CVE-2017-8291 is a critical vulnerability published on April 27, 2017. Artifex Ghostscript through 2017-04-26 allows -dSAFER bypass and remote command execution via .rsdparams type confusion with a "/OutputFile (%pipe%" substring in a crafted .eps document that is an input to the gs program, as exploited in the wild in April 2017.
When was CVE-2017-8291 disclosed?
CVE-2017-8291 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on April 27, 2017, with the most recent update on April 21, 2026. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2017-8291 actively exploited?
Yes. CISA added CVE-2017-8291 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on May 24, 2022, affecting Artifex Ghostscript. KEV listing indicates confirmed exploitation in the wild; this CVE warrants immediate patching attention.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2017-8291?
CVE-2017-8291 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.8 (NVD). EchelonGraph synthesises NVD + CISA KEV + FIRST EPSS + GHSA into a combined EG score of 9.0.
Which products are affected by CVE-2017-8291?
CVE-2017-8291 affects Artifex Ghostscript. The full affected-products list, including version ranges and fixed versions, is shown in the Affected Packages section of this page.
How do I remediate CVE-2017-8291?
Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2017-8291, EchelonGraph cross-links them in the Vendor Advisories panel below — those typically contain the canonical remediation steps, fixed version numbers, and any vendor-specific mitigations.

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