CVE-2017-5855 Podofo Project CVE debrief

Who should care

Security and platform teams that deploy PoDoFo 0.9.4 or applications that embed it, especially if they open untrusted PDF content or other externally supplied files.

Technical summary

According to NVD, the vulnerable component is PoDoFo::PdfParser::ReadXRefSubsection in PdfParser.cpp, with CWE-476 (NULL pointer dereference). The NVD CVSS vector is AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H, which indicates a crash/availability issue rather than a code-execution or data-exposure flaw. The short CVE description says "remote attackers," but the CVSS vector classifies the attack as local with required user interaction.

Defensive priority

Medium. The issue does not indicate confidentiality or integrity impact, but it can crash PDF-processing workflows that consume untrusted files.

Recommended defensive actions

• Identify whether any deployed products or internal tools bundle PoDoFo 0.9.4.
• Treat PoDoFo-based PDF parsing as untrusted input handling and reduce exposure to externally supplied files where possible.
• Apply the vendor or downstream fix if your distribution provides one; if not, upgrade to a patched PoDoFo release when available.
• Add regression testing for malformed or crafted PDF inputs in any service that uses PoDoFo.
• Monitor for parser crashes or abnormal exits in PDF-processing applications as an indicator of exploitation or accidental trigger.

Evidence notes

CVE published on 2017-03-01T15:59:01.087Z and later modified in NVD on 2026-05-13T00:24:29.033Z; the supplied third-party advisory reference is dated 2017-02-01. NVD lists PoDoFo 0.9.4 as the affected version and assigns CWE-476 with CVSS 3.0 AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H. The supplied corpus does not include a vendor-maintained patch URL, only official record links and third-party references.

Official resources