CVE-2021-3781
Published: 16 February 2022
Summary
CVE-2021-3781 is a critical-severity Improper Input Validation (CWE-20) vulnerability in Artifex Ghostscript. Its CVSS base score is 9.9 (Critical).
Operationally, ranked in the top 8.7% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2021-27045
Vulnerability details
A trivial sandbox (enabled with the `-dSAFER` option) escape flaw was found in the ghostscript interpreter by injecting a specially crafted pipe command. This flaw allows a specially crafted document to execute arbitrary commands on the system in the context…
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of the ghostscript interpreter. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to confidentiality, integrity, as well as system availability.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Directly implements checks on information inputs to reject invalid data before processing.
Security testing and developer training directly verify and enforce proper input validation, reducing exploitability of injection and malformed-data weaknesses.
Security testing and evaluation at multiple SDLC stages directly detects missing or flawed input validation, with the required remediation process ensuring fixes are applied.
Platform-independent apps typically execute inside a managed runtime or sandbox that restricts direct OS command execution, reducing the ability to exploit OS command injection.
Spam protection mechanisms perform filtering and detection on inbound/outbound messages, directly compensating for missing or weak input validation of unsolicited content.