Vulnerabilities in various GTK-based PDF readers
Date:
Thu, 21 May 2026 21:05:20 +0000
Description:
Michael Catanzaro has disclosed a
command-injection vulnerability affecting a number of GTK-based PDF
readers; exploits included: They contain a script for building malicious polyglot PDFs that are
simultaneously both valid PDF files and also valid ELF
binaries. When the user opens the PDF in the PDF viewer and clicks
on a malicious link embedded in the PDF, the PDF abuses the command
injection vulnerability to load itself as a GTK module using the
`--gtk-module` command line flag. It can then execute arbitrary
code via its library constructor. That flag was removed in GTK 4,
which is why the vulnerability is much less serious for Papers than
it is for Evince, Atril, and Xreader.
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Link to news story:
https://lwn.net/Articles/1073944/
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