CVE-2017-5507 in ImageMagick
Summary
by MITRE
Memory leak in coders/mpc.c in ImageMagick before 6.9.7-4 and 7.x before 7.0.4-4 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via vectors involving a pixel cache.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/15/2022
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2017-5507 represents a critical memory leak flaw within ImageMagick's pixel cache handling mechanism. This issue affects both the 6.x series prior to version 6.9.7-4 and the 7.x series prior to version 7.0.4-4, exposing systems that process image files through ImageMagick to potential denial of service attacks. The memory leak occurs specifically within the coders/mpc.c file, which manages the pixel cache operations during image processing workflows.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability involves crafting malicious image files that trigger improper memory management during pixel cache allocation and deallocation processes. When ImageMagick processes these specially crafted files, the memory leak manifests as continuous memory consumption without proper garbage collection, leading to progressive memory exhaustion on the target system. This flaw operates at the core of ImageMagick's image processing pipeline, where pixel cache management is fundamental to handling image data operations.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability presents a significant risk to systems that process untrusted image uploads or perform automated image analysis tasks. Remote attackers can exploit this weakness by uploading or submitting malicious image files that cause the application to consume excessive memory resources over time. The denial of service impact can be severe, potentially causing system crashes, application hangs, or complete system resource exhaustion that affects other services running on the same infrastructure. This vulnerability particularly impacts web applications, content management systems, and any platform that relies on ImageMagick for image processing capabilities.
The vulnerability maps to CWE-401, which specifically addresses improper handling of memory allocation failures and memory leaks in software systems. This classification aligns with the fundamental principle that applications must properly manage dynamic memory allocation and deallocation to prevent resource exhaustion attacks. From an attacker's perspective, this vulnerability fits within the ATT&CK framework under the T1499 technique category, specifically targeting the "Network Denial of Service" tactic. The attack chain involves initial reconnaissance to identify vulnerable systems, followed by crafting malicious payloads that exploit the memory management flaw to consume system resources.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2017-5507 require immediate patching of affected ImageMagick installations to versions 6.9.7-4 or 7.0.4-4, which contain the necessary memory management fixes. Organizations should also implement input validation and file type verification mechanisms to prevent processing of potentially malicious image files. Network-level protections such as rate limiting and resource quotas can help limit the impact of exploitation attempts. Additionally, system administrators should monitor memory consumption patterns and implement automated alerting for unusual resource usage that might indicate exploitation attempts. Regular security assessments and vulnerability scanning should be conducted to identify systems running outdated versions of ImageMagick that may be susceptible to similar memory management flaws in other components of the software ecosystem.