CVE-2022-48338

An issue was discovered in GNU Emacs through 28.2. In ruby-mode.el, the ruby-find-library-file function has a local command injection vulnerability. The ruby-find-library-file function is an interactive function, and bound to C-c C-f. Inside the function, the external command gem is called through shell-command-to-string, but the feature-name parameters are not escaped. Thus, malicious Ruby source files may cause commands to be executed.

Published: 2023-02-20 Last update: 2025-03-18 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2022-48338 is rated Moderate Risk (56.8/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.70%). EPSS rose +1.61% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. 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-2022-48338

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 0.09% 1.70% +1.61%
2 2025-11-21 0.19% 0.09% -0.10%
3 2025-11-18 — 0.19% —

Full EPSS history (10 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2022-48338

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.3 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/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:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
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.
 1.3 5.9 [email protected]
7.3 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/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:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
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.
 1.3 5.9 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2022-48338

OS Trackers for CVE-2022-48338

vendor priority summary link
alpine — CVE-2022-48338: 1 source package rows (emacs); 11 state rows across 3 repos (3.18-community, 3.22-community, edge-community); fixed 0, open 11. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2022-48338
debian not yet assigned CVE-2022-48338 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (emacs), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2022-48338
gentoo high CVE-2022-48338: 1 GLSA(s) (202407-08), 2 atom(s) (app-editors/emacs, app-emacs/org-mode); latest impact high. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2022-48338
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-48338
suse high CVE-2022-48338 severity important: SUSE including 31 source package names (emacs, emacs-27.2-150400.3.6.1, …), 196 product×package rows across 42 product lines (SUSE CaaS Platform 4.0, SUSE Enterprise Storage 7, … (42 product lines)): Known Not Affected 141, Fixed 55. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-48338/
ubuntu medium CVE-2022-48338 medium priority: Ubuntu including 6 source packages (emacs, emacs23, emacs24, emacs25, xemacs21, xemacs21-packages), 60 status rows across 13 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): ignored 17, needs-triage 16, DNE 15, not-affected 10, released 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2022-48338

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2022-48338

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
gnu emacs <= 28.2 cpe:2.3:a:gnu:emacs:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2022-48338

cvelogic Threat Intelligence