CVE-2017-14604

medium
Published 2017-09-20 · Modified 2026-05-13
CVSS v3
6.5
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
CVSS v2
4.0
VIR risk
6.5

Description

GNOME Nautilus before 3.23.90 allows attackers to spoof a file type by using the .desktop file extension, as demonstrated by an attack in which a .desktop file's Name field ends in .pdf but this file's Exec field launches a malicious "sh -c" command. In other words, Nautilus provides no UI indication that a file actually has the potentially unsafe .desktop extension; instead, the UI only shows the .pdf extension. One (slightly) mitigating factor is that an attack requires the .desktop file to have execute permission. The solution is to ask the user to confirm that the file is supposed to be treated as a .desktop file, and then remember the user's answer in the metadata::trusted field.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood
75%
Patch ETA

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: debian — https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2017-14604

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: suse — https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-14604.html

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: cve@mitre.org — https://github.com/GNOME/nautilus/commit/bc919205bf774f6af3fa7154506c46039af5a69b

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: cve@mitre.org — https://github.com/GNOME/nautilus/commit/1630f53481f445ada0a455e9979236d31a8d3bb0

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: cve@mitre.org — https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=777991

OS impact

OSVersionStatusFixed in
suse slesaffected
debian debian8.0affected
debian debian9.0affected
debian debian10.0affected
debian debianbookwormfixed3.25.90-1
debian debianbullseyefixed3.25.90-1
debian debianforkyfixed3.25.90-1
debian debiansidfixed3.25.90-1
debian debiantrixiefixed3.25.90-1

Application impact

VendorProductVersionsFixed
gnomenautilus{"endExcluding":"3.23.90"}3.23.90

References

CWEs

CWE-20

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.