Executive brief
A vulnerability exists in libtiff, a widely used library for processing TIFF image files. By tricking a user into opening a specially crafted image file, an attacker can cause the application to crash, leading to a denial of service. This could disrupt business operations or services that rely on automated image processing.
Technical details
An out-of-bounds read (heap-buffer-overflow) exists in the tiffsplit tool of libtiff 4.0.6. The vulnerability is located in the cpStrips function within tiffsplit.c and is triggered when the library is in TIFF_STRIPCHOP mode. The root cause is an incorrect calculation in TIFFNumberOfStrips() where it recomputes strip values instead of using the modified td_nstrips value. An attacker can exploit this by providing a malformed TIFF file with specific strip configurations, leading to a crash (denial of service). The issue was fixed by ensuring TIFFNumberOfStrips() returns the td_nstrips value when it is non-zero.
Affected products
- libtiff libtiff 4.0.6
Timeline
- 2016-11-07: other: Vulnerability reported to libtiff bugzilla
- 2016-11-10: patched: Fixed in libtiff CVS by Even Rouault
- 2017-01-18: advisory: NVD publication date