CVE-2024-56378 – CVE-2024-56378 is an out-of-bounds read vulnera... (How to Fix)

Q: What is the severity of CVE-2024-56378?

CVE-2024-56378 has a CVSS score of 4.3 (MEDIUM). CVE-2024-56378 is an out-of-bounds read vulnerability in Poppler's JBIG2Stream.cc that could allow an attacker to read sensitive memory data from the application. This affects systems processing PDF files with malicious JBIG2 image streams using Poppler library versions through 24.12.0. The vulnerability could lead to information disclosure or application crashes.

📋 TL;DR

CVE-2024-56378 is an out-of-bounds read vulnerability in Poppler's JBIG2Stream.cc that could allow an attacker to read sensitive memory data from the application. This affects systems processing PDF files with malicious JBIG2 image streams using Poppler library versions through 24.12.0. The vulnerability could lead to information disclosure or application crashes.

💻 Affected Systems

Products:

Poppler PDF rendering library
Applications using libpoppler.so

Versions: Poppler through version 24.12.0

Operating Systems: Linux, Unix-like systems, Any OS running Poppler

Default Config Vulnerable: ⚠️ Yes

Notes: Affects any application that uses Poppler for PDF processing, including document viewers, converters, and web services that parse PDFs.

📦 What is this software?

Poppler by Freedesktop

View all CVEs affecting Poppler →

⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact

🔴

Worst Case

Information disclosure of sensitive memory contents, potentially including credentials or other application data, leading to complete system compromise if combined with other vulnerabilities.

🟠

Likely Case

Application crash (denial of service) when processing specially crafted PDF files, potentially disrupting PDF rendering services.

🟢

If Mitigated

Limited impact with proper memory protections and sandboxing, potentially just application termination without data loss.

🌐 Internet-Facing: MEDIUM - PDF processing services exposed to untrusted files could be vulnerable to DoS attacks.

🏢 Internal Only: LOW - Requires user interaction to open malicious PDF files, limited to internal document processing workflows.

🎯 Exploit Status

Public PoC: ✅ No

Weaponized: UNKNOWN

Unauthenticated Exploit: ✅ No

Complexity: MEDIUM

Exploitation requires crafting a malicious PDF file with specific JBIG2 image data. User interaction needed to open the file or automated processing of untrusted PDFs.

🛠️ Fix & Mitigation

✅ Official Fix

Patch Version: Fixed in Poppler 24.12.1 and later

Vendor Advisory: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/poppler/poppler/-/issues/1553

Restart Required: Yes

Instructions:

1. Update Poppler to version 24.12.1 or later. 2. For Debian/Ubuntu: apt update && apt upgrade poppler-utils. 3. For source builds: git pull and rebuild. 4. Restart affected services using Poppler.

🔧 Temporary Workarounds

Disable JBIG2 support

all

Configure applications to disable JBIG2 image processing in PDF files

Application-specific configuration required

Sandbox PDF processing

linux

Run PDF processing in isolated containers or sandboxes to limit impact

docker run --read-only --security-opt no-new-privileges

🧯 If You Can't Patch

Implement strict input validation for PDF files before processing
Deploy application-level firewalls to monitor for crash patterns

🔍 How to Verify

Check if Vulnerable:

Check Poppler version: poppler-utils --version or ldd /path/to/application | grep poppler

Check Version:

poppler-utils --version 2>/dev/null || pdfinfo -v 2>/dev/null | head -1

Verify Fix Applied:

Verify version is 24.12.1 or later: dpkg -l | grep poppler or rpm -qa | grep poppler

📡 Detection & Monitoring

Log Indicators:

Application crashes with segmentation faults
Error logs mentioning JBIG2Stream
Memory access violation errors

Network Indicators:

Unusual PDF file uploads to web services
Multiple failed PDF processing attempts

SIEM Query:

source="application.log" AND ("segmentation fault" OR "SIGSEGV") AND process="*poppler*"

📊 Metadata

CVE ID: CVE-2024-56378

CVSS v3 Score: 4.3 (MEDIUM)

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

CWE: CWE-125

Published: December 23, 2024

Last Updated: November 3, 2025

🔗 References

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