CVE-2026-116145 in ImageMagick
Summary
by MITRE • 10/25/2026
ImageMagick before 6.9.13-58 and 7.x before 7.1.2-32 contains a security policy bypass caused by an incomplete fix for the policy bypass reported in GHSA-jjp4-3fwf-393j. An attacker able to supply input to ImageMagick can evade configured security policy restrictions, allowing operations the policy was intended to block.
If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/25/2026
The vulnerability identified in ImageMagick versions prior to 6.9.13-58 and 7.x prior to 7.1.2-32 represents a critical failure in access control mechanisms within one of the most widely used open-source image processing libraries. This flaw is not an entirely new attack vector but rather a regression resulting from an incomplete remediation effort for a previously disclosed security policy bypass, originally tracked under GHSA-jjp4-3fwf-393j. The core issue lies in how ImageMagick processes its configuration files, specifically the policies.xml file which defines permissions for various operations such as reading, writing, executing external programs, and accessing resources like fonts or URLs. When developers attempted to patch the earlier vulnerability, they failed to account for all possible code paths or parsing logic that could be exploited to circumvent these restrictions. Consequently, an attacker who can supply input data to ImageMagick, whether through direct API calls, command-line arguments, or web application uploads, is able to bypass the configured security policies. This allows operations that were explicitly intended to be blocked by system administrators or developers to proceed without restriction, undermining the defense-in-depth strategy employed in secure deployments of image processing services.
From a technical perspective, this vulnerability aligns with CWE-250, which describes execution with unnecessary privileges, and more specifically CWE-732, concerning incorrect permission assignment for critical resources. The root cause is often traced to logic errors in the policy evaluation engine where certain input patterns or edge cases are not properly sanitized or validated against the whitelist of allowed actions. In many implementations of ImageMagick, particularly when used as a backend service for web applications handling user-uploaded images, this bypass can be triggered by crafting specific image files that exploit ambiguities in how delegate commands or external tools invoked by ImageMagick are authorized. The incomplete fix suggests that while some obvious vectors were closed, deeper architectural flaws in the policy parsing logic remained unaddressed, allowing sophisticated attackers to construct payloads that slip through the validation checks. This is particularly dangerous because security policies are often relied upon as a primary safeguard against remote code execution and server-side request forgery attacks when processing untrusted media files.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe for any organization relying on ImageMagick to process images from external sources. If an attacker can bypass policy restrictions, they may be able to invoke arbitrary system commands via the delegate mechanism, leading directly to remote code execution on the host server. This aligns with MITRE ATT&CK technique T1059, Command and Scripting Interpreter, as well as T1203, Exploitation for Client Execution if the context involves client-side rendering or download triggers. Furthermore, bypassing restrictions on file access could allow an attacker to read sensitive files from the server filesystem that were not intended to be accessible through image processing operations, constituting a data exfiltration risk consistent with CWE-200, Information Exposure. In cloud-native environments where ImageMagick is containerized or used in microservices, this vulnerability can facilitate lateral movement if the compromised service has access to other internal resources due to overly permissive default policies that were meant to be tightened but are now effectively nullified by the bypass.
Mitigation strategies must prioritize immediate patching of all affected instances to versions 6.9.13-58 or later for the legacy branch and 7.1.2-32 or later for the current major version, as these releases contain the complete fix that addresses both the original vulnerability and its subsequent bypass vector. Beyond updating software, organizations should rigorously audit their ImageMagick configuration files to ensure that security policies are not only present but correctly configured to deny all operations by default unless explicitly permitted. This principle of least privilege is essential; administrators should disable unnecessary delegates such as Ghostscript or external image converters if they are not strictly required for the application's functionality, thereby reducing the attack surface available for policy bypasses. Additionally, implementing input validation at the application layer before passing data to ImageMagick can provide an additional defense layer. Security teams should also monitor logs for unusual patterns of image processing requests that might indicate exploitation attempts and consider using sandboxing or containerization with strict resource limits to contain any potential compromise resulting from this vulnerability.