CVE-2019-7978
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 · uneditedAdobe Photoshop CC versions 19.1.8 and earlier and 20.0.5 and earlier have a heap overflow vulnerability. Successful exploitation could lead to arbitrary code execution.
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 confidenceAdobe Photoshop CC versions 19.1.8 and earlier and 20.0.5 and earlier contain a heap overflow vulnerability. The heap overflow allows an attacker to corrupt heap memory, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution when a specially crafted file is opened in Photoshop.
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<= 19.1.8>= 20.0, <= 20.0.5CVSS 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
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Locate Adobe Photoshop CC installationOpen Photoshop and go to Help > About Photoshop, or check the application in your installed programs list to confirm the installation path and version number.Affected if Adobe Photoshop CC is installed on the system
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Determine the installed Photoshop version numberIn Photoshop, the exact version number appears in the About dialog (Help > About Photoshop). Note the full version string (for example: 19.1.8 or 20.0.5).Affected if The version cannot be determined or Photoshop is not found
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Compare your version against affected rangesCheck if your installed version falls into either of these vulnerable ranges: version 19.x equal to or below 19.1.8, OR version 20.x equal to or below 20.0.5. Any version in these ranges is affected.Affected if The installed version is 19.1.8 or earlier, OR is 20.0.5 or earlier (including 20.0.0 through 20.0.5)
You are affected if Adobe Photoshop CC version 19.1.8 or earlier, or version 20.0.5 or earlier (20.0.0-20.0.5), is installed on your system.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataUpdate Adobe Photoshop CC to a patched version (later than 19.1.8 for the 19.x branch and later than 20.0.5 for the 20.x branch). Until patched, avoid opening untrusted or unexpected image files in Photoshop.
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2019-7978 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2019-7978 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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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.
- 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