Executive brief
ImageMagick, a widely used tool for processing and converting images, contains a memory leak when writing certain raw pixel data formats. If exploited, this could allow an attacker to slowly consume a server's available memory by submitting specially crafted image processing requests. Over time, this may lead to degraded performance or a service outage (denial of service) as the system runs out of resources.
Technical details
A memory leak vulnerability (CWE-401) exists in ImageMagick within multiple coders responsible for writing raw pixel data. The issue stems from a failure to free allocated objects (specifically noted as 160-byte leaks) during the image writing process. An attacker can trigger this leak remotely via the network by providing input that utilizes these specific coders. While the complexity is high and the impact per-request is small, repeated exploitation can lead to a denial-of-service condition through memory exhaustion. The vulnerability is addressed in ImageMagick source and Magick.NET version 14.10.3.
Affected products
- ImageMagick Magick.NET-Q16-AnyCPU < 14.10.3
- ImageMagick Magick.NET-Q16-HDRI-AnyCPU < 14.10.3
- ImageMagick Magick.NET-Q8-AnyCPU < 14.10.3
- ImageMagick ImageMagick Fixed in commit fe0a49a
Timeline
- 2026-02-23: patched: Initial patch and Magick.NET release
- 2026-02-25: advisory: GitHub Advisory published