CVE-2026-46529

Description

Atril Document Viewer is the default document reader of the MATE desktop environment for Linux. A single-click remote code execution vulnerability in versions prior to 1.26.3 and 1.28.4 allows an attacker to achieve arbitrary code execution as the user by tricking them into clicking a link inside a malicious PDF document. The PDF can be packaged as a polyglot file that is simultaneously a valid PDF and a valid ELF shared library, making the attack a single-file, single-click, configuration-independent RCE on stock atril installations. The root cause is `shell/ev-application.c:ev_spawn`, which builds a command line from attacker-controlled PDF link-destination fields without applying `g_shell_quote`. The cmdline is then handed to `g_app_info_create_from_commandline`, which shell-parses it back into argv — splitting any embedded `--gtk-module=PATH` into a separate argv element. GTK then `dlopen()`s the path during init, running any `__attribute__((constructor))` it finds. Versions 1.26.3 and 1.28.4 contain a patch for the issue. This is the same defect class as CVE-2023-51698 (CBT `--checkpoint-action` injection in `comics-document.c`, fixed in 1.6.2) but in a different code path (`shell/ev-application.c`) that the original patch did not touch.

• How can I get the fixes?
• What do statuses mean?
• Patch details

Patch details

Severity score breakdown

CVSS version: CVSS v4.0

References

• MITRE
• NVD
• Launchpad
• Debian

Related Ubuntu Security Notices (USN)

• USN-8295-1
• Evince vulnerability
• 22 May 2026
• USN-8321-1
• Papers vulnerability
• 27 May 2026

Other references

• https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-46529
• https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/05/19/34
• https://medeiros.zip/posts/CVE-2026-46529-evince
• https://blogs.gnome.org/mcatanzaro/2026/05/21/single-click-code-execution-exploit-for-evince-atril-and-xreader/