🛡️ CVE-2020-36773 on Debian — ghostscript

⚪ Unknown ✅ No Known Exploit OSV

N/A

CVSS Score

0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

Artifex Ghostscript before 9.53.0 has an out-of-bounds write and use-after-free in devices/vector/gdevtxtw.c (for txtwrite) because a single character code in a PDF document can map to more than one Unicode code point (e.g., for a ligature).

Distribution advisory

This page covers CVE-2020-36773 as tracked by Debian, for the package ghostscript. The fix is available in version 9.53.0~dfsg-1; earlier versions remain affected.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached over the network, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs no privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality high, integrity high, availability high.

Affected software

DEBIAN-CVE-2020-36773 is recorded against 1 package.

ghostscript (fixed in 9.53.0~dfsg-1)

Timeline and source

Published on 4 February 2024 and last revised on 5 August 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from OSV.

References

security-tracker.debian.org (Advisory)

CVE-2020-36773 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Ubuntu

Details

Severity Unknown

CVSS Score N/A

CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CWE N/A

Public Exploit ✅ No

Source OSV

Published 2024-02-04

Updated 2026-08-11

Modified 2026-08-05

Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software	From version	Fixed in
ghostscript	—	9.53.0~dfsg-1

References

ADVISORY https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2020-36773

🔗 NVD 🔗 Mitre

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