What is CVE-2018-7442?

CVE-2018-7442 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Leptonica, classified under Path Traversal. CVSS score: 9.1/10. Published 2018-02-23.

How severe is CVE-2018-7442?

Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.1 out of 10.

Path Traversal in Leptonica

CVE-2018-7442

An issue was discovered in Leptonica through 1.75.3. The gplotMakeOutput function does not block '/' characters in the gplot rootname argument, potentially leading to path traversal and arbitrary file overwrite.

Vulnerability class: Path Traversal (Directory Traversal)

Published 2018-02-23 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.1 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.020 (79.9th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 80th percentile — 79.9% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.020 · newest: 0.020 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Leptonica

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-22 — Path Traversal

References

lists.debian.org/debian-lts/2018/02/msg00086.html (Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/202312-01 (vendor-advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-7442?: CVE-2018-7442 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Leptonica, classified under Path Traversal. CVSS score: 9.1/10. Published 2018-02-23.
How severe is CVE-2018-7442?: Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.1 out of 10.