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Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2017-9406

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.0 Published 2017-06-02
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
72/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable 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 0.54.0, a memory leak vulnerability was found in the function gmalloc in gmem.cc, which allows attackers to cause a denial of service via a crafted file.

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

A memory leak exists in Poppler 0.54.0 within the gmalloc function in gmem.cc. When processing a specially crafted PDF file, memory allocated by gmalloc is not properly freed, leading to memory exhaustion and denial of service.

MitigationUpgrade Poppler to version 0.55.0 or later, which contains the fix for this memory leak in the gmalloc function.

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:= 8.0= 9.0
PopplerApplication
Affected:= 0.54.0

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
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/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 Poppler version
    Run 'poppler-utils --version' or 'pdftotext -v' to determine the installed Poppler library version
    Affected if The version displayed is 0.54.0 exactly
  2. Check Debian release version
    Run 'cat /etc/debian_version' to identify the Debian release
    Affected if The system is running Debian 8.0 (Jessie) or Debian 9.0 (Stretch) and Poppler 0.54.0 is installed
  3. Verify gmem.cc source file version
    If Poppler is built from source, check the version tag in gmem.cc or the source package version with 'dpkg -l libpoppler*' on Debian systems
    Affected if The installed package version matches 0.54.0
  4. Confirm Poppler tools availability
    Check if Poppler utilities like pdftotext, pdfinfo, or pdfimages are installed and accessible via command line
    Affected if Poppler is installed and available for processing PDF files, which is required to trigger the memory leak

The system is affected if Poppler version 0.54.0 is installed and the system has the capability to process PDF files using Poppler utilities.

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

Upgrade Poppler to version 0.55.0 or later, which contains the fix for this memory leak in the gmalloc function.

Fix this in Debian Linux Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation1.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
6.0 hours of engineering $1,040
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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-2017-9406 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