CVE-2019-9878

Exp

There is an invalid memory access in the function GfxIndexedColorSpace::mapColorToBase() located in GfxState.cc in Xpdf 4.0.0, as used in pdfalto 0.2. It can be triggered by (for example) sending a crafted pdf file to the pdftops binary. It allows an attacker to cause Denial of Service (Segmentation fault) or possibly have unspecified other impact.

Published: 2019-03-21 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2019-9878 is rated High Exploit Risk (69.5/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.20%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

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

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2019-9878

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2019-9878

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 0.31% 1.20% +0.89%
2 2026-02-19 0.23% 0.31% +0.08%
3 2025-03-30 — 0.23% —

Full EPSS history (10 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2019-9878

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-2019-9878

OS Trackers for CVE-2019-9878

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2019-9878 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (xpdf), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2019-9878
suse low CVE-2019-9878 severity low: SUSE including 1 source package names (xpdf), 1 product×package rows across 1 product lines (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 for Teradata): Known Not Affected 1. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2019-9878/
ubuntu medium CVE-2019-9878 medium priority: Ubuntu including 4 source packages (ipe, libextractor, poppler, xpdf), 56 status rows across 14 suites (bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 40, ignored 7, DNE 5, needs-triage 4. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2019-9878

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2019-9878

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
pdfalto_project pdfalto 0.2 cpe:2.3:a:pdfalto_project:pdfalto:0.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
xpdfreader xpdf 4.0.0 cpe:2.3:a:xpdfreader:xpdf:4.0.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2019-9878

cvelogic Threat Intelligence