CVE-2025-27836

Critical

Published: 25 March 2025

Published

25 March 2025

Modified

03 November 2025

KEV Added

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Patch

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CVSS Score 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS Score 0.0017 37.9th percentile

Risk Priority 20 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2025-27836 is a critical-severity Classic Buffer Overflow (CWE-120) vulnerability in Artifex Ghostscript. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 37.9th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-16 (Memory Protection) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).

Threat & Defense at a Glance

What attackers do: exploitation maps to Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190). What defenders deploy: see the NIST 800-53 controls recommended below.

Threat & Defense Details

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI

SI-2 Flaw Remediation good match

prevent

Timely flaw remediation requires upgrading Ghostscript to 10.05.0 or later to directly patch the Print buffer overflow in the BJ10V device.

SI-16 Memory Protection good match

prevent

Memory protection mechanisms like DEP, ASLR, and stack canaries prevent or hinder exploitation of the buffer overflow for arbitrary code execution.

SI-10 Information Input Validation partial match

prevent

Input validation of PostScript data processed by Ghostscript restricts malformed inputs that trigger the buffer overflow in gdev10v.c.

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access

Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.

attack.mitre.org →

Why these techniques?

The remote network-accessible buffer overflow in Ghostscript enables arbitrary code execution via malicious PostScript input with no authentication or user interaction, directly mapping to exploitation of a public-facing application.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

NVD Description

An issue was discovered in Artifex Ghostscript before 10.05.0. The BJ10V device has a Print buffer overflow in contrib/japanese/gdev10v.c.

Deeper analysisAI

CVE-2025-27836 is a buffer overflow vulnerability (CWE-120) affecting Artifex Ghostscript versions before 10.05.0. The flaw occurs in the BJ10V device implementation, specifically a Print buffer overflow in the source file contrib/japanese/gdev10v.c. Published on 2025-03-25, it carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8, indicating critical severity due to its network accessibility and potential for severe impacts.

Remote, unauthenticated attackers can exploit this vulnerability over the network (AV:N) with low attack complexity (AC:L), requiring no privileges (PR:N) or user interaction (UI:N), and without changing scope (S:U). Successful exploitation enables high impacts on confidentiality (C:H), integrity (I:H), and availability (A:H), potentially allowing arbitrary code execution or system compromise via malicious PostScript input processed by the affected Ghostscript instance.

Advisories reference mitigation through upgrading to Ghostscript 10.05.0 or later, where the issue is addressed. Key resources include the Ghostscript bug tracker entry at https://bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi?id=708192 and the Debian LTS announcement at https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/04/msg00014.html.