# CVE-2023-24808: Denial Of Service when opening a corrupt PDF file in pdfio

> Attackers can cause a denial of service by uploading crafted PDF files to applications using the pdfio library, leading to infinite loops and resource exhaustion.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 7 Feb 2023
- **Updated:** 10 Mar 2025
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2023-24808, GHSA-cjc4-x96x-fvgf, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-24808

## What is CVE-2023-24808?

CVE-2023-24808 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in michaelrsweet pdfio, published on 7 Feb 2023. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

PDFio is a C library for reading and writing PDF files. In versions prior to 1.1.0 a denial of service (DOS) vulnerability exists in the pdfio parser. Crafted pdf files can cause the program to run at 100% utilization and never terminate. The pdf which causes this crash found in testing is about 28kb in size and was discovered via fuzzing. Anyone who uses this library either as a standalone binary or as a library can be DOSed when attempting to parse this type of file. Web servers or other automated processes which rely on this code to turn pdf submissions into plaintext can be DOSed when an attacker uploads the pdf. Please see the linked GHSA for an example pdf. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

Weakness: CWE-835 (Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-24808?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Pdfio Project Pdfio.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-24808?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2023-24808 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2023-24808 exists.

## Other vulnerabilities in michaelrsweet pdfio

- [CVE-2023-28428](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-28428/): PDFio vulnerable to Denial Of Service when opening a corrupt PDF file (medium 6.2)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-24808 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-24808 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in michaelrsweet pdfio, published on 7 Feb 2023. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2023-24808 exists.

Affected product: michaelrsweet pdfio. 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-2023-24808/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-24808/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-24808
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-24808
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-24808

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-24808/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.