CVE-2026-105825 in ImageMagick
Summary
by MITRE • 10/08/2026
ImageMagick before 6.9.13-55 and 7.x before 7.1.2-30 contains a denial of service vulnerability in its handling of XMP profiles, where a crafted profile terminates the process instead of raising an exception. Attackers can supply images with malicious XMP profiles to crash applications that process them using ImageMagick.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/08/2026
The identified security flaw resides within the Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) profile parsing logic in versions of ImageMagick prior to 6.9.13-55 and version 7.x prior to 7.1.2-30. This vulnerability is classified under Common Weakness Enumeration as CWE-400, which denotes uncontrolled resource consumption leading to denial of service conditions. The core technical deficiency involves improper error handling during the parsing of crafted XMP metadata embedded within image files. Instead of gracefully managing malformed or maliciously constructed profile data through standard exception mechanisms, the underlying code execution path encounters a critical failure that terminates the process entirely. This behavior indicates a lack of robust boundary checking and state management when processing complex XML-based structures, allowing an attacker to trigger a crash by supplying specifically engineered input that exploits these parsing inconsistencies.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses a significant risk to any application or service that utilizes ImageMagick for image processing tasks involving user-uploaded content. Since many web applications, cloud storage services, and digital asset management systems rely on ImageMagick to validate, resize, or convert images containing metadata, the ability to crash the underlying process can lead to immediate service disruption. In a multi-threaded environment where each request may spawn a new thread or process, an attacker could potentially exhaust system resources by repeatedly triggering these crashes, effectively creating a denial of service condition that impacts availability for legitimate users. The impact is particularly severe in server-side applications where the image processing component runs with elevated privileges or as part of a critical infrastructure pipeline, making it difficult to isolate the failure without restarting dependent services.
This vulnerability aligns with MITRE ATT&CK technique T1496, which covers Resource Hijacking for Denial of Service, specifically through resource exhaustion via application crashes. The attack vector typically involves an attacker embedding malicious XMP data into a standard image format such as JPEG or PNG and uploading it to a vulnerable service. Upon processing, the malformed profile triggers the unhandled exception path that results in process termination. This method is particularly effective because it leverages legitimate functionality for metadata extraction rather than exploiting complex buffer overflows, making detection by traditional signature-based intrusion prevention systems more challenging unless specific behavioral anomalies are monitored.
To mitigate this risk, organizations must immediately upgrade ImageMagick to version 6.9.13-55 or later, and version 7.x to 7.1.2-30 or later, where the parsing logic has been hardened to properly handle malformed XMP profiles without terminating the process. In addition to software updates, it is advisable to implement strict input validation policies that sanitize metadata before processing images with ImageMagick. Deploying a web application firewall capable of detecting anomalous XML structures in uploaded files can provide an additional layer of defense. Furthermore, running image processing tasks within isolated containers or sandboxed environments limits the blast radius of any successful exploitation attempt, ensuring that even if a crash occurs, it does not compromise the host system or other critical services. Regular monitoring of application logs for unexpected process terminations associated with ImageMagick operations can also aid in early detection and response to potential attacks exploiting this flaw.