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Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2017-14926

MEDIUM · 5.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2017-09-30
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
58/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
No privileges

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
In Poppler 0.59.0, a NULL Pointer Dereference exists in AnnotRichMedia::Content::Content in Annot.cc via a crafted PDF document.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in Poppler 0.59.0's AnnotRichMedia::Content::Content function in Annot.cc when processing a crafted PDF document. The vulnerability causes a denial of service via application crash due to dereferencing a NULL pointer during PDF annotation parsing.

MitigationUpdate to a patched version of Poppler (post 0.59.0) or implement PDF sandboxing/content filtering for untrusted PDF documents.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 9.0
PopplerApplication
Affected:= 0.59.0

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

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

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify the installed Poppler version
    Run 'pdfinfo -v' or 'pdftotext -v' to display the Poppler version, or check the package manager: 'dpkg -l | grep poppler' (Debian) or 'rpm -qa | grep poppler' (RPM-based)
    Affected if The installed version is exactly 0.59.0
  2. Confirm Poppler library is in use
    Check if applications using Poppler (like Evince, Okular, or command-line PDF tools) are installed and in use: 'ldd <pdf_viewer_binary> | grep poppler' or 'which pdfinfo pdftotext'
    Affected if Poppler libraries are linked and used for PDF processing
  3. Verify PDF annotation processing is possible
    The vulnerability triggers during PDF annotation parsing in AnnotRichMedia::Content. Any PDF rendered through Poppler that contains rich media annotations could trigger the flaw. Check if untrusted PDFs can be opened in Poppler-based viewers
    Affected if The application processes PDF documents with annotation support enabled (default behavior) and accepts input from untrusted sources

If Poppler version 0.59.0 is installed and processes PDF documents, the environment is affected by this vulnerability.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Update to a patched version of Poppler (post 0.59.0) or implement PDF sandboxing/content filtering for untrusted PDF documents.

Fix this in Debian Linux Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation6.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
14.0 hours of engineering $2,490
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2017-14926 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data