CVE-2022-38097 — A use-after-free vulnerability exists in the JavaScript engine of Foxit Software

A use-after-free vulnerability exists in the JavaScript engine of Foxit Software's PDF Reader, version 12.0.1.12430. By prematurely destroying annotation objects, a specially-crafted PDF document can trigger the reuse of previously freed memory, which can lead to arbitrary c

01What is this vulnerability?

A use-after-free vulnerability exists in the JavaScript engine of Foxit Software's PDF Reader, version 12.0.1.12430. By prematurely destroying annotation objects, a specially-crafted PDF document can trigger the reuse of previously freed memory, which can lead to arbitrary code execution. An attacker needs to trick the user into opening the malicious file to trigger this vulnerability…

02Affected products

Vendor	Product	Versions
Foxit	Foxit Reader	12.0.1.12430

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

• Published: 2022-11-21T16:05:37.153Z
• Last modified: 2025-04-15T18:40:02.047Z

09References

• talosintelligence.com — https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2022-1601