Stack-buffer-overflow in sgets in ghostscript

ghostscript Updated 02 Oct 2025

Summary

30/01/2022

Disclosed on

HIGH

Severity

Yes i

Fix available

High

Severity

Not published

CVSS Score

OSV-2022-100: Stack-buffer-overflow in sgets. Affects ghostscript versions >= 75fbddf52051987287e62d13c659eb73ba16982f, < 76c27d4f4dceeba02840a29c6e3ba45989a7daca. Fixed in 76c27d4f4dceeba02840a29c6e3ba45989a7daca. How to fix ↓

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Background

Ghostscript is an open-source interpreter for the PostScript language and the PDF file format. It is widely used for rendering and converting PDF files. The vulnerability in question is a stack-buffer-overflow in the 'sgets' function of Ghostscript. This function is responsible for reading strings from a file. The vulnerability allows an attacker to write more data to a buffer than it can hold, leading to a stack buffer overflow.

Vulnerability Detail

The stack-buffer-overflow vulnerability in 'sgets' can be exploited by an attacker to overwrite adjacent memory locations on the stack, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution or a crash. The vulnerability was discovered through an OSS-Fuzz report. The affected function 'sgets' is called by 'pdfi_read_bytes' and 'read_xref_entry_slow'. The vulnerability has a high severity rating.

How To Fix

Minimum fixed version

76c27d4f4dceeba02840a29c6e3ba45989a7daca

This is the first release that contains the fix.

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Workaround

There is no known workaround for this vulnerability. It is recommended to update to the fixed version as soon as possible.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the stack-buffer-overflow vulnerability in 'sgets' in Ghostscript can be exploited to execute arbitrary code or cause a crash. It is crucial to update to the fixed version of Ghostscript (9.55.0 or later) to mitigate the risk. For further support on vulnerability remediation, please contact DevNack.com.

See every vulnerability recorded for ghostscript →