Description
Ghostscript for Windows is vulnerable to local privilege escalation through PostScript resource file hijacking. Due to the application searching for PostScript resource files in predictable paths under C:\\gs\\ that do not exist by default on Windows installations, combined with Windows default ACLs allowing any authenticated user to create directories at the root of C:\\, an attacker who is an authenticated local user can create the expected directory structure and plant a malicious PostScript file. When any user or service subsequently runs Ghostscript, the planted file is automatically loaded and executed with the full privileges of the Ghostscript process. This results in full compromise of Ghostscript process context, as well as running arbitrary code on the machine with Ghostscript process privileges. This issue was fixed in version 10.08.0.
References3
Metrics
- CVSS 4.0
-
7.0
HIGH
Score source: CNA
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X - EPSS — exploit probability
- 0% percentile: 1 · as of 9 November 2026
- CWE
- CWE-426
Could this be exploited in your environment?
A patch closes the known hole. A penetration test shows what an attacker can still reach — with proof.