CVE-2026-106578 in ImageMagick
Summary
by MITRE • 10/07/2026
ImageMagick is free and open-source software used for editing and manipulating digital images. Prior to 7.1.2-31 and 6.9.13-56, a crafted image can cause an invalid memory free in the MVG decoder and crash the process. This issue is fixed in versions 7.1.2-31 and 6.9.13-56.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/07/2026
ImageMagick serves as a foundational toolset for digital image processing, widely integrated into web applications, content management systems, and automated pipelines that handle user-uploaded or untrusted visual data. The vulnerability identified in versions prior to 7.1.2-31 and 6.9.13-56 resides within the Magick Vector Graphics MVG decoder component of the software suite. This specific module is responsible for parsing vector-based image formats, which are often used due to their scalability and smaller file sizes compared to raster images. The core technical flaw involves an invalid memory free operation triggered by a specially crafted input file. When the parser encounters malformed or maliciously constructed MVG data structures, it fails to properly validate pointers before attempting deallocation operations in memory management routines. This logic error results in the program attempting to release memory that has already been freed, is not allocated, or contains corrupted metadata, leading directly to a heap-based use-after-free condition or double free vulnerability.
The operational impact of this flaw is primarily characterized by process instability and denial of service conditions. Because the invalid memory access occurs during the decoding phase, any application relying on ImageMagick to process MVG files will likely crash upon encountering the malicious payload. In server-side environments where ImageMagick processes images asynchronously or in response to user requests, such crashes can lead to significant availability issues, effectively rendering image processing services unusable until the service is restarted. While the primary manifestation described is a crash indicative of memory corruption, heap-based vulnerabilities like double frees and use-after-frees are historically associated with higher severity risks because they can potentially be exploited for arbitrary code execution under specific conditions involving allocator state manipulation or control flow hijacking techniques. Even if exploitation for remote code execution is complex due to modern mitigations such as Address Space Layout Randomization and Data Execution Prevention, the reliability of applications depending on this library is severely compromised by these memory safety violations.
From a classification perspective, this vulnerability aligns with CWE-415 Double Free, which describes situations where an application frees a block of heap memory twice, potentially leading to corruption or exploitation. It also relates closely to CWE-787 Out-of-bounds Write if the invalid free leads to subsequent writes into corrupted metadata structures. In terms of adversary behavior and detection frameworks, this type of vulnerability is relevant to MITRE ATT&CK technique T1496 Resource Hijacking when considering denial of service impacts on computational resources, or more broadly under initial access vectors where malicious files are used as the delivery mechanism for exploiting software weaknesses in web applications. The attack vector typically involves an attacker submitting a crafted MVG file through any interface that accepts image uploads and passes them to ImageMagick for processing, such as profile picture uploaders, document conversion services, or automated thumbnail generation systems.
Mitigation strategies must prioritize immediate version upgrades to the patched releases 7.1.2-31 and 6.9.13-56 where these memory management checks have been corrected by the development team. For environments unable to upgrade immediately due to dependency constraints, defense-in-depth measures should be implemented at the network or application layer. This includes restricting file uploads to allow only specific, safe image formats while explicitly blocking MVG files if they are not strictly required for business operations. Additionally, deploying ImageMagick within a sandboxed environment with strict resource limits can mitigate the impact of crashes and potential exploitation attempts by isolating the process from critical system resources. Regular monitoring of application logs for segmentation faults or abnormal termination signals associated with image processing services is also recommended to detect attempted exploits in real-time.