ALBA-2021:5231 poppler bug fix and enhancement update
Not scored
Published
Check this codebase for ALBA-2021:5231 and fix it if it is affected.
What it is: ALBA-2021:5231 is a denial of service vulnerability in poppler, published on 21 Dec 2021. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of ALBA-2021:5231 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Affected product: poppler. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.
Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.
Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/ALBA-2021-5231/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/ALBA-2021-5231/index.md)
An attacker can cause a denial of service by tricking a user into opening a specially crafted PDF document with the Poppler library.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- A user has to click or open something
- Fix
- Available
What is ALBA-2021:5231?
ALBA-2021:5231 is a denial of service vulnerability in poppler, published on 21 Dec 2021. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Official description
Poppler is a Portable Document Format (PDF) rendering library, used by applications such as Evince.
Bug Fix(es) and Enhancement(s):
- Unable to open certain PDF documents (BZ#2002691)
Which versions are affected by ALBA-2021:5231?
Linux distribution packages (9)
poppler AlmaLinux:8 | All versions | 20.11.0-3.el8_5.1 |
poppler-cpp AlmaLinux:8 | All versions | 20.11.0-3.el8_5.1 |
poppler-cpp-devel AlmaLinux:8 | All versions | 20.11.0-3.el8_5.1 |
poppler-devel AlmaLinux:8 | All versions | 20.11.0-3.el8_5.1 |
poppler-glib AlmaLinux:8 | All versions | 20.11.0-3.el8_5.1 |
poppler-glib-devel AlmaLinux:8 | All versions | 20.11.0-3.el8_5.1 |
poppler-qt5 AlmaLinux:8 | All versions | 20.11.0-3.el8_5.1 |
poppler-qt5-devel AlmaLinux:8 | All versions | 20.11.0-3.el8_5.1 |
poppler-utils AlmaLinux:8 | All versions | 20.11.0-3.el8_5.1 |
How do I fix ALBA-2021:5231?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is ALBA-2021:5231 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of ALBA-2021:5231 in the wild and no public exploit code.