# CVE-2019-9903: Denial of service in n/a

> A crafted PDF file can cause stack consumption in Poppler, leading to a denial of service when processed by tools like pdfunite.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 21 Mar 2019
- **Updated:** 4 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2019-9903, GHSA-7xgf-6fqh-86mv, UBUNTU-CVE-2019-9903

## What is CVE-2019-9903?

CVE-2019-9903 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 21 Mar 2019. 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

PDFDoc::markObject in PDFDoc.cc in Poppler 0.74.0 mishandles dict marking, leading to stack consumption in the function Dict::find() located at Dict.cc, which can (for example) be triggered by passing a crafted pdf file to the pdfunite binary.

Weakness: CWE-787 (Out-of-bounds Write)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-9903?

It affects 8 products.


Products: Canonical Ubuntu Linux, Debian Debian Linux, Fedoraproject Fedora, Freedesktop Poppler, Redhat Enterprise Linux, Redhat Enterprise Linux Eus, Redhat Enterprise Linux Server Aus, Redhat Enterprise Linux Server Tus.

## How do I fix CVE-2019-9903?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2019-9903 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-9903 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Canonical Ubuntu Linux

- [CVE-2020-11651](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-11651/): SaltStack Salt Authentication Bypass (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2020-7247](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-7247/): OpenSMTPD Remote Code Execution (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2019-16928](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-16928/): Exim Out-of-bounds Write (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2018-6789](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-6789/): Exim Buffer Overflow (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2015-2590](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-2590/): Oracle Java SE and Java SE Embedded Remote Code Execution (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2019-9903 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2019-9903 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 21 Mar 2019. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-9903 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Canonical Ubuntu Linux. 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/CVE-2019-9903/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-9903/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-9903
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-9903
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2019-9903

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-9903/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.