# CVE-2023-28428: PDFio vulnerable to Denial Of Service when opening a corrupt PDF file

> Attackers can cause a denial of service by providing a crafted PDF file to applications using the PDFio library, leading to infinite loops and high CPU usage.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.2 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 20 Mar 2023
- **Updated:** 25 Feb 2025
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2023-28428, GHSA-68x8-9phf-j7jf, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-28428

## What is CVE-2023-28428?

CVE-2023-28428 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in michaelrsweet pdfio, published on 20 Mar 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

PDFio is a C library for reading and writing PDF files. In versions 1.1.0 and prior, a denial of service vulnerability exists in the pdfio parser. Crafted pdf files can cause the program to run at 100% utilization and never terminate. This is different from CVE-2023-24808. A patch for this issue is available in version 1.1.1.

Weakness: CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-28428?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Pdfio Project Pdfio.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-28428?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2023-28428 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-28428 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in michaelrsweet pdfio

- [CVE-2023-24808](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-24808/): Denial Of Service when opening a corrupt PDF file in pdfio (medium 5.3)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-28428 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-28428 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in michaelrsweet pdfio, published on 20 Mar 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-28428 in the wild and no public exploit code.

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-2023-28428/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-28428/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-28428
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-28428
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-28428

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-28428/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.