CVE-2023-2491 — A flaw was found in the Emacs text editor

A flaw was found in the Emacs text editor. Processing a specially crafted org-mode code with the "org-babel-execute:latex" function in ob-latex.el can result in arbitrary command execution. This CVE exists because of a CVE-2023-28617 security regression for the emacs pa

01What is this vulnerability?

A flaw was found in the Emacs text editor. Processing a specially crafted org-mode code with the "org-babel-execute:latex" function in ob-latex.el can result in arbitrary command execution. This CVE exists because of a CVE-2023-28617 security regression for the emacs package in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2.

02Affected products

Vendor	Product	Versions
n	a / emacs	Affects emacs v26.1-9.el8 and emacs v27.2-8.el9, Fixed in emacs v26.1-10.el8_8.2 and emacs v27.2-8.el9_2.1

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

08Timeline

• Published: 2023-05-17T00:00:00.000Z
• Last modified: 2025-01-22T18:23:43.462Z

09References

• bugzilla.redhat.com — https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2192873
• access.redhat.com — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-2491
• access.redhat.com — https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2023:3104
• access.redhat.com — https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2023:2626