CVE-2023-51608
Memory Safety in Tungstenautomation Power Pdf ≤ 5.0.0.19
Raw vector
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2023-51608 is a high-severity Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer (CWE-119) vulnerability in Tungstenautomation Power Pdf. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).
Operationally, ranked at the 44th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-56320
Vulnerability Data
Kofax Power PDF J2K File Parsing Memory Corruption Remote Code Execution Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on affected installations of Kofax Power PDF. User interaction is required to exploit this vulnerability in that the target…
more
must visit a malicious page or open a malicious file. The specific flaw exists within the parsing of J2K files. The issue results from the lack of proper validation of user-supplied data, which can result in a memory corruption condition. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to execute code in the context of the current process. Was ZDI-CAN-21833.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Secure engineering principles require memory-safe design and coding that structurally avoids buffer-boundary violations.
Input validation directly enforces bounds checking that stops out-of-bounds reads/writes from being introduced or reached.
Memory protection restricts exploitation impact of buffer overflows without eliminating the underlying coding flaw.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
A.8.25 mandates secure SDLC practices (secure coding guidelines, security requirements, testing including code scans and penetration tests, developer training) that reach buffer management and can stop many buffer overruns from reaching production, but leaves a bounded remainder (e.g. flaws in non-software components, incomplete enforcement of guidelines, or post-deployment changes)
Application security requirements can specify memory-safety rules, but do not prescribe implementation details.
A.8.27 mandates security-by-design principles (e.g. least privilege, fail securely, distrust external input, hardening) plus design reviews that can catch and stop buffer-boundary errors before they reach code, but this is only one minority slice of CWE-119's broad surface (language-specific flaws, unsafe library use, compiler/runtime mitigations, and post-deployment instances remain outside its direct scope).
Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe buffer operations, directly eliminating CWE-119.
Security testing in development catches out-of-bounds accesses before release, covering most instances of the weakness.
Hardening callouts derived
DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.
- No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-119, a class-level weakness. Rules are authored against its narrower children: CWE-823.