CVE-2017-12595

The tokenizer in QPDF 6.0.0 and 7.0.b1 is recursive for arrays and dictionaries, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (stack consumption and segmentation fault) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a PDF document with a deep data structure, as demonstrated by a crash in QPDFObjectHandle::parseInternal in libqpdf/QPDFObjectHandle.cc.

Published: 2017-08-27 Last update: 2026-05-13 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2017-12595 is rated Moderate Risk (60.1/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.84%). Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2017-12595

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-01 2.14% 1.84% -0.30%
2 2026-03-27 1.27% 2.14% +0.87%
3 2026-01-14 — 1.27% —

Full EPSS history (14 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2017-12595

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.8 3.0 HIGH
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 1.8 5.9 [email protected]
6.8 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 8.6 6.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2017-12595

OS Trackers for CVE-2017-12595

vendor priority summary link
alpine — CVE-2017-12595: 1 source package rows (qpdf); 7 state rows across 7 repos (3.17-community, 3.18-community, 3.19-community, 3.20-community, 3.21-community, 3.22-community, edge-community); fixed 7, open 0. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2017-12595
debian not yet assigned CVE-2017-12595 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (qpdf), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2017-12595
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-12595
suse low CVE-2017-12595 severity low: SUSE including 34 source package names (cups-filters-1.0.58-15.2.1, cups-filters-1.0.58-19.2.3, …), 166 product×package rows across 50 product lines (SUSE CaaS Platform 4.0, SUSE Enterprise Storage 4, … (50 product lines)): Fixed 139, Known Not Affected 27. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-12595/
ubuntu low CVE-2017-12595 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (qpdf), 6 status rows across 6 suites (artful, bionic, trusty, upstream, xenial, zesty): released 3, not-affected 2, ignored 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2017-12595

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2017-12595

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
qpdf_project qpdf 6.0.0 cpe:2.3:a:qpdf_project:qpdf:6.0.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
qpdf_project qpdf 7.0.b1 cpe:2.3:a:qpdf_project:qpdf:7.0.b1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2017-12595

URL Tags
https://github.com/qpdf/qpdf/commit/ad527a64f93dca12f6aabab2ca99ae5eb352ab4b Issue Tracking Patch Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/qpdf/qpdf/issues/146 Issue Tracking Patch Third Party Advisory
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3638-1/
cvelogic Threat Intelligence