CVE-2018-16511
ghostscript: missing type check in type checker (699659)
Severity
ImportantRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.0
Review impact separately from score.
Published · August 24, 2018
Updated · November 22, 2025
Description
It was discovered that the ghostscript .type operator did not properly validate its operands. A specially crafted PostScript document could exploit this to crash ghostscript or, possibly, execute arbitrary code in the context of the ghostscript process.
Statement
This issue affects the versions of ghostscript as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6, and 7.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is now in Maintenance Support 2 Phase of the support and maintenance life cycle. This has been rated as having a security impact of Important, and is not currently planned to be addressed in future updates. For additional information, refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle: https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is now in Extended Life Phase of the support and maintenance life cycle. This issue is not currently planned to be addressed in future updates. For additional information, refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle: https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/.
CVSS score applicability
The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.
Mitigation
Please see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1619748#c3
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 3.0 · 7.3CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
CWE-704 · Incorrect Type Conversion or Cast