An array index error in the parser for PK font files, which is used for rendering DVI files, in the GNOME evince document viewer can lead to local or remote code execution. Due to insufficient bounds checks when writing to elements in an array, it's possible to overwrite the address of a function pointer, leading to possible arbitrary code execution.

Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures assigned an identifier CVE-2010-2640 to this issue.

The vulnerability is present in the code that handles loading of fonts used by DVI files.To exploit you need two files, a DVI file and the malicious font.
The vulnerability is triggered not only by opening the document in evince, but also by browsing to a folder which contains the malicious files, where evince thumbnailer will load the malicious file to generate a thumbnail for it.

Acknowledgements:

Red Hat would like to thank the Evince development team for reporting this issue. Upstream acknowledges Jon Larimer of IBM X-Force as the original reporter.