Buffer overflow in (1) gv 3.5.8 and earlier, (2) gvv 1.0.2 and earlier, (3) ggv 1.99.90 and earlier, (4) gnome-gv, and (5) kghostview in kdegraphics 2.2.2 and earlier, allows attackers to execute arbitrary code via a malformed (a) PDF or (b) PostScript file, which is processed by an unsafe call to sscanf.

Zen-parse discovered a buffer overflow in gv, a PostScript and PDF viewer for X11. The same code is present in kghostview which is part of the KDE-Graphics package. This problem is triggered by scanning the PostScript file and can be exploited by an attacker sending a malformed PostScript or PDF file. The attacker is able to cause arbitrary code to be run with the privileges of the victim.

Zen-parse discovered a buffer overflow in gv, a PostScript and PDF viewer for X11. The same code is present in gnome-gv. This problem is triggered by scanning the PostScript file and can be exploited by an attacker sending a malformed PostScript or PDF file. The attacker is able to cause arbitrary code to be run with the privileges of the victim.

Zen-parse discovered a buffer overflow in gv, a PostScript and PDF viewer for X11. This problem is triggered by scanning the PostScript file and can be exploited by an attacker sending a malformed PostScript or PDF file. The attacker is able to cause arbitrary code to be run with the privileges of the victim.

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-200408-10 (gv: Exploitable Buffer Overflow)

    gv contains a buffer overflow vulnerability where an unsafe sscanf() call     is used to interpret PDF and PostScript files.
  Impact :

    By enticing a user to view a malformed PDF or PostScript file an attacker     could execute arbitrary code with the permissions of the user running gv.
  Workaround :

    There is no known workaround at this time. All users are encouraged to     upgrade to the latest available version of gv.

A vulnerability exists in KGhostview, part of the kdegraphics package.
It includes a DSC 3.0 parser from GSview then is vulnerable to a buffer overflow while parsing a specially crafted .ps file. It also contains code from gv which is vulnerable to a similar buffer overflow triggered by malformed PostScript and PDF files. This has been fixed in KDE 3.0.4 and patches have been applied to correct these packages.

A buffer overflow was discovered in gv versions 3.5.8 and earlier by Zen Parse. The problem is triggered by scanning a file and can be exploited by an attacker sending a malformed PostScript or PDF file.
This would result in arbitrary code being executed with the privilege of the user viewing the file. ggv uses code derived from gv and has the same vulnerability. These updates provide patched versions of gv and ggv to fix the vulnerabilities.

Updated packages for gv, ggv, and kdegraphics fix a local buffer overflow when reading malformed PDF or PostScript files.

[Updated 07 Jan 2003] Added fixed packages for the Itanium (IA64) architecture.

[Updated 06 Feb 2003] Added fixed packages for Advanced Workstation 2.1

Gv and ggv are user interfaces for the Ghostscript PostScript(R) interpreter used to display PostScript and PDF documents on an X Window System. KGhostview is the PostScript viewer for the K Desktop Environment.

Zen Parse found a local buffer overflow in gv version 3.5.8 and earlier. An attacker can create a carefully crafted malformed PDF or PostScript file in such a way that when that file is viewed arbitrary commands can be executed.

ggv and kghostview contain code derived from gv and therefore have the same vulnerability.

All users of gv, ggv, and kghostview are advised to upgrade to the errata packages which contain patches to correct the vulnerability.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
15019	Debian DSA-182-1 : kdegraphics - buffer overflow	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	medium
15016	Debian DSA-179-1 : gnome-gv - buffer overflow	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	medium
15013	Debian DSA-176-1 : gv - buffer overflow	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	medium
14566	GLSA-200408-10 : gv: Exploitable Buffer Overflow	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	medium
13971	Mandrake Linux Security Advisory : kdegraphics (MDKSA-2002:071)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	high
13969	Mandrake Linux Security Advisory : gv (MDKSA-2002:069)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	medium
12325	RHEL 2.1 : ggv (RHSA-2002:211)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	medium

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2002-0838

high

Tenable Plugins

medium

medium

medium

medium

high

medium

medium