CVE-2017-16611

medium

Published 2017-12-01 · Modified 2026-05-13

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CVSS v3

5.5

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVSS v4 NEW

—

not yet in upstream

VIR risk

5.5

Description

In libXfont before 1.5.4 and libXfont2 before 2.0.3, a local attacker can open (but not read) files on the system as root, triggering tape rewinds, watchdogs, or similar mechanisms that can be triggered by opening files.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood

55%

Patch ETA

—

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

✚ Propose a mitigation on Community → Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here with source_tier=community-verified.

OS impact

OS	Version	Status	Fixed in
sles		affected
debian	bookworm	fixed	`1:2.0.3-1`
debian	bullseye	fixed	`1:2.0.3-1`
debian	forky	fixed	`1:2.0.3-1`
debian	sid	fixed	`1:2.0.3-1`
debian	trixie	fixed	`1:2.0.3-1`
debian	8.0	affected
debian	9.0	affected
ubuntu	14.04	affected
ubuntu	16.04	affected
ubuntu	17.04	affected
ubuntu	17.10	affected

Application impact

Vendor	Product	Versions	Fixed
x	libxfont	`{"startIncluding":"1.0.0","endExcluding":"1.5.4"}`	`1.5.4`

References

CWEs

CWE-59

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

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