CVE-2017-18186

An issue was discovered in QPDF before 7.0.0. There is an infinite loop due to looping xref tables in QPDF.cc.

Published: 2018-02-13 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2017-18186 is rated Moderate Risk (40.1/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.32%). Mandatory action: 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-2017-18186

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 2025-03-30 0.49% 0.32% -0.17%
2 2025-03-29 0.32% 0.49% +0.17%
3 2025-03-17 0.32%

Full EPSS history (6 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2017-18186

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/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:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 3.6 [email protected]
4.3 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/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:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
8.6 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2017-18186

OS Trackers for CVE-2017-18186

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2017-18186 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-2017-18186
redhat low https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-18186
suse medium CVE-2017-18186 severity moderate: SUSE including 6 source package names (libqpdf21, libqpdf26, libqpdf28, qpdf, qpdf-devel, qpdf-htmldoc), 82 product×package rows across 28 product lines (SUSE CaaS Platform 4.5, SUSE Enterprise Storage 7, … (28 product lines)): Known Not Affected 82. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-18186/
ubuntu low CVE-2017-18186 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (qpdf), 5 status rows across 5 suites (artful, bionic, trusty, upstream, xenial): released 3, not-affected 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2017-18186

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2017-18186

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
qpdf_project qpdf < 7.0.0 cpe:2.3:a:qpdf_project:qpdf:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2017-18186

cvelogic Threat Intelligence