CVE-2018-7453

Infinite recursion in AcroForm::scanField in AcroForm.cc in xpdf 4.00 allows attackers to launch denial of service via a specific pdf file due to lack of loop checking, as demonstrated by pdftohtml.

Published: 2018-02-24 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2018-7453 is rated Moderate Risk (41.9/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.92%). 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-2018-7453

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 2026-06-15 0.41% 0.92% +0.50%
2 2025-11-21 0.15% 0.41% +0.26%
3 2025-11-18 — 0.15% —

Full EPSS history (10 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-7453

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-2018-7453

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-7453

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2018-7453 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (xpdf), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): open 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-7453
gentoo normal CVE-2018-7453: 1 GLSA(s) (202409-25), 1 atom(s) (app-text/xpdf); latest impact normal. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2018-7453
suse medium CVE-2018-7453 severity moderate: SUSE including 16 source package names (libpoppler-cpp0, libpoppler-devel, …), 216 product×package rows across 37 product lines (SUSE CaaS Platform 4.0, SUSE Enterprise Storage 7, … (37 product lines)): Known Not Affected 216. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-7453/
ubuntu negligible CVE-2018-7453 negligible priority: Ubuntu including 4 source packages (ipe, libextractor, poppler, xpdf), 80 status rows across 20 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): ignored 30, not-affected 30, needs-triage 9, DNE 5, needed 5, deferred 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-7453

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-7453

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
xpdfreader xpdf 4.00 cpe:2.3:a:xpdfreader:xpdf:4.00:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-7453

URL Tags
https://forum.xpdfreader.com/viewtopic.php?p=814#p814 Issue Tracking Vendor Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence