CVE-2024-53920

In elisp-mode.el in GNU Emacs before 30.1, a user who chooses to invoke elisp-completion-at-point (for code completion) on untrusted Emacs Lisp source code can trigger unsafe Lisp macro expansion that allows attackers to execute arbitrary code. (This unsafe expansion also occurs if a user chooses to enable on-the-fly diagnosis that byte compiles untrusted Emacs Lisp source code.)

Published: 2024-11-27 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2024-53920 is rated Moderate Risk (45.5/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.51%). 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-2024-53920

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 0.05% 0.51% +0.46%
2 2026-04-21 0.05% 0.05% +0.01%
3 2026-04-09 — 0.05% —

Full EPSS history (15 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2024-53920

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
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 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2024-53920

OS Trackers for CVE-2024-53920

vendor priority summary link
alpine — CVE-2024-53920: 1 source package rows (emacs); 12 state rows across 2 repos (3.22-community, edge-community); fixed 0, open 12. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2024-53920
debian not yet assigned CVE-2024-53920 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-2024-53920
gentoo high CVE-2024-53920: 1 GLSA(s) (202506-01), 1 atom(s) (app-editors/emacs); latest impact high. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2024-53920
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-53920
suse high CVE-2024-53920 severity important: SUSE including 44 source package names (emacs, emacs-26.1-15.el8_10, …), 195 product×package rows across 39 product lines (SUSE Liberty Linux 8, SUSE Liberty Linux 9, … (39 product lines)): Fixed 125, Known Not Affected 70. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-53920/
ubuntu medium CVE-2024-53920 medium priority: Ubuntu including 5 source packages (emacs, emacs24, emacs25, xemacs21, xemacs21-packages), 41 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, upstream, xenial): needs-triage 15, DNE 12, ignored 9, released 4, not-affected 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2024-53920

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2024-53920

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
gnu emacs < 30.1 cpe:2.3:a:gnu:emacs:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2024-53920

cvelogic Threat Intelligence