CVE-2018-5158 Malicious PDF can inject JavaScript into PDF Viewer

What is CVE-2018-5158?

CVE-2018-5158 is a high-severity code injection vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 11 Jun 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

Official description

The PDF viewer does not sufficiently sanitize PostScript calculator functions, allowing malicious JavaScript to be injected through a crafted PDF file. This JavaScript can then be run with the permissions of the PDF viewer by its worker. This vulnerability affects Firefox ESR < 52.8 and Firefox < 60.

Weakness: CWE-94

Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-5158?

4 open source packages ship an affected version, including pdfjs-dist. It affects 9 products.

Products include Canonical Ubuntu Linux, Debian Debian Linux, Mozilla Firefox, Redhat Enterprise Linux Desktop, Redhat Enterprise Linux Server, Redhat Enterprise Linux Server Aus and 3 more.

How do I fix CVE-2018-5158?

Upgrade pdfjs-dist to a fixed version for your release line: 1.10.100 or 2.0.550.

Upgrade, and never evaluate templates, expressions or code built from user input. More about Code injection.

Is CVE-2018-5158 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-5158 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Public exploit code: 1 proofs of concept on GitHub.

Other vulnerabilities in Canonical Ubuntu Linux

• CVE-2020-11651 SaltStack Salt Authentication Bypass Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2020-7247 OpenSMTPD Remote Code Execution Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2019-16928 Exim Out-of-bounds Write Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2018-6789 Exim Buffer Overflow Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2015-2590 Oracle Java SE and Java SE Embedded Remote Code Execution Exploited Critical 9.8

All Canonical Ubuntu Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2018-5158, GHSA-7jg2-jgv3-fmr4, UBUNTU-CVE-2018-5158.