CVE-2023-52076 | Remote Code Execution Vulnerability in Atril's EPUB ebook parsing

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Atril Document Viewer is the default document reader of the MATE desktop environment for Linux. A path traversal and arbitrary file write vulnerability exists in versions of Atril prior to 1.26.2. This vulnerability is capable of writing arbitrary files anywhere on the filesystem to which the user opening a crafted document has access. The only limitation is that this vulnerability cannot be exploited to overwrite existing files, but that doesn't stop an attacker from achieving Remote Command Execution on the target system. Version 1.26.2 of Atril contains a patch for this vulnerability.

Published: 2024-01-25 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-52076 is rated High Exploit Risk (84/100): CVSS High severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 13.71%, 94th percentile). Core evidence: 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +1.95% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Mandatory action: 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-2023-52076

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2023-52076

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 2026-05-30 11.76% 13.71% +1.95%
2 2026-05-06 11.35% 11.76% +0.41%
3 2026-03-25 11.35%

Full EPSS history (28 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-52076

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
8.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L 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:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
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:L)
Might cause slowdowns, glitches, or partial disruption—not a full brick.
1.8 6.0 [email protected]
7.8 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/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]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-52076

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-52076

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-52076 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (atril), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-52076
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-52076 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (atril), 8 status rows across 8 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, mantic, noble, trusty, upstream, xenial): released 6, DNE 1, not-affected 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-52076

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-52076

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
mate-desktop atril < 1.26.2 cpe:2.3:a:mate-desktop:atril:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-52076

cvelogic Threat Intelligence