CVE-2026-105399 in ImageMagick
Summary
by MITRE • 10/08/2026
ImageMagick before 6.9.13-56 and 7.x before 7.1.2-31 contains a denial of service vulnerability in the MVG decoder caused by a missing limit check. Attackers can supply a crafted MVG image that triggers a long-running decoding operation, consuming excessive CPU resources and stalling image processing.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/08/2026
The identified security flaw resides within the Magick Vector Graphics or MVG decoder component of ImageMagick versions prior to 6.9.13-56 for version six series and before 7.1.2-31 for the seven series. This vulnerability is classified as a denial of service issue stemming from an insufficient input validation mechanism, specifically a missing limit check during the parsing and processing of MVG files. The core technical deficiency involves the decoder's inability to properly bound or restrict the complexity and size of vector graphics instructions contained within the input file. When ImageMagick processes these files, it attempts to interpret various drawing commands such as paths, transforms, and text rendering operations without adequate safeguards against excessively complex or deeply nested structures that can lead to infinite loops or computationally intensive calculations during rasterization.
From a technical perspective, MVG is an XML-based format used for describing vector graphics in ImageMagick. The vulnerability arises because the parser does not enforce strict limits on recursion depth, loop iterations, or total command count when decoding these files. An attacker can craft a malicious MVG file containing specially designed sequences of drawing commands that force the decoder into a long-running operation. This could involve creating deeply nested transformation matrices or paths with an excessive number of points and curves that require significant computational resources to resolve during the conversion from vector space to pixel space. The absence of these protective limits allows the processing thread to consume disproportionate amounts of Central Processing Unit time, effectively starving other processes on the host system of necessary computing cycles.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is primarily a denial of service against systems relying on ImageMagick for image processing tasks. Since many web applications and backend services utilize ImageMagick to handle user-uploaded images or process batch jobs, an attacker can exploit this flaw by submitting a crafted MVG file through any interface that accepts such input. The resulting resource exhaustion can lead to application timeouts, service crashes, or complete unavailability of the image processing functionality. In shared hosting environments or containerized deployments where resources are strictly allocated, this attack vector could cause collateral damage to other tenants or services running on the same infrastructure by depleting available CPU capacity and potentially triggering automatic scaling events that incur unnecessary costs for cloud providers.
This vulnerability aligns with Common Weakness Enumeration identifier CWE-400 which describes uncontrolled resource consumption leading to denial of service conditions. It also maps to MITRE ATT&CK technique T1496, Resource Hijacking, where adversaries use compromised resources to perform computationally intensive tasks or disrupt availability. The attack vector is typically classified as Network Accessible if the vulnerable ImageMagick instance is exposed via a web server or API endpoint that processes user-supplied MVG files without prior sanitization or validation of file complexity metrics.
Mitigation strategies focus on upgrading the underlying software to patched versions where these limit checks have been implemented by the developers. Organizations should immediately update their ImageMagick installations to version 6.9.13-56 or later for the six series, and version 7.1.2-31 or later for the seven series. In addition to upgrading, administrators should implement strict input validation policies that reject MVG files exceeding predefined complexity thresholds before they are passed to the decoder. Utilizing a dedicated image processing service with resource quotas can also help contain the impact of such attacks by limiting the maximum CPU time and memory any single process is allowed to consume. Furthermore, deploying Web Application Firewalls or custom middleware rules to detect and block suspiciously large or complex vector graphics inputs provides an additional layer of defense against exploitation attempts targeting this specific weakness in older versions of ImageMagick.