No exploitation reportedFix available

CVE-2021-3781

No exploitation reported by the sources we read.

Published2022-02-16
WeaknessCWE-20 · CWE-78

Am I affected?

With a domain, we read the version its public headers and pages expose. A distribution build can carry the fix under an older number.

Description

A trivial sandbox (enabled with the `-dSAFER` option) escape flaw was found in the ghostscript interpreter by injecting a specially crafted pipe command. This flaw allows a specially crafted document to execute arbitrary commands on the system in the context of the ghostscript interpreter. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to confidentiality, integrity, as well as system availability.

Timeline

dates in UTC

2022-02-1619:15CVE publishedNVD
2026-10-2319:23EPSS crossed 10 %FIRST EPSS

Observed activity

isMalicious corpus · updated 2026-10-23 18:48 UTC

Indicators tagged with this CVE, per day0 indicators over 7 days

Block these indicators

Firewall list (EDL, text): https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2021-3781?format=txt
CSV export: https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2021-3781?format=csv
TAXII collection of exploited CVEs
The EDL and CSV take an API key on the Pro plan.

Versions per branch

NVD

Artifex ghostscript

Branch	Affected	Fixed in	Source
9.50	= 9.50	no fix published	NVD
9.52	= 9.52	no fix published	NVD
9.53	= 9.53.3	no fix published	NVD
9.54	= 9.54.0	no fix published	NVD

Fedoraproject fedora

Branch	Affected	Fixed in	Source
34.x	= 34	no fix published	NVD

as publishedRanges as NVD and OSV publish them; a distribution’s build can be fixed under an older number.

Fix

Advisories and patches

bugzilla.redhat.comPatch
ghostscript.comPatch · Vendor Advisory

Detection

Nuclei template: none so far
Exploit-DB: no entry
Proof-of-concept repositories: none listed

Sources

NVDCVSS 3.19.9read 2026-10-23
NVDCVSS 2.09.3read 2026-10-23
CNAweakness (CWE)CWE-20read 2026-10-23
NVDweakness (CWE)CWE-78read 2026-10-23
FIRST EPSSEPSS score83.9 %read 2026-10-23

Technical details

CVSS v3 Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Published: 2022-02-16
Last Modified: 2026-06-17
NVD status: Modified

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2021-3781?

Is CVE-2021-3781 actively exploited?

Active exploitation of CVE-2021-3781 has not been confirmed. Its EPSS score was 83.9% on 2026-10-22, the estimated probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2021-3781?

CVE-2021-3781 has a CVSS v3 base score of 9.9 (CRITICAL severity), with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H.

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