CVE-2026-118475 in Red Hat
Summary
by MITRE • 10/30/2026
A flaw was found in Eye of GNOME. When parsing a specially crafted PNG image containing malformed color profile metadata, the application fails to validate chunk boundaries while searching for a null terminator. An attacker could trick a user into opening a malicious image, causing the application to read past the allocated buffer. This issue can lead to an application crash, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS), or potentially expose sensitive memory contents.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/30/2026
The vulnerability identified within Eye of GNOME represents a critical failure in input validation during the parsing of Portable Network Graphics files. Specifically, the flaw resides in how the image viewer handles color profile metadata embedded within PNG chunks. When processing these specialized images, the application attempts to locate a null terminator character to determine string boundaries but neglects to verify that this search operation remains strictly within the allocated buffer limits. This lack of boundary checking allows for an out-of-bounds read condition where the software accesses memory locations beyond what was originally assigned to handle the image data. Such behavior is characteristic of CWE-125, which describes Out-of-Bounds Read vulnerabilities, indicating a fundamental weakness in how dynamic memory allocation and pointer arithmetic are managed during file parsing operations.
The operational impact of this flaw extends beyond simple application instability. While an attacker can exploit this condition to trigger a segmentation fault or similar error that results in the immediate termination of Eye of GNOME, thereby causing a Denial of Service against the user's ability to view images, the more severe implication involves information disclosure. By reading past the allocated buffer, the maliciously crafted PNG file enables the application to expose sensitive contents from adjacent memory regions. This could potentially leak cryptographic keys, session tokens, or other private data currently held in RAM by the process. The exploitation of this vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1059, specifically within the context of command and script interpreter behaviors where malformed inputs are used to manipulate application state for unauthorized information access or service disruption.
Mitigation strategies must address both immediate remediation and long-term defensive coding practices. For end users, applying the latest software updates provided by distribution maintainers is essential as these patches typically include fixes that enforce strict buffer boundary checks during PNG parsing. From a development perspective, engineers should implement rigorous validation routines that verify chunk lengths against actual file sizes before initiating any memory reads. Utilizing safe string handling libraries and enabling compiler flags such as stack protectors can further mitigate the risk of exploitation by detecting out-of-bounds accesses at runtime. Additionally, adopting fuzzing techniques during the software testing phase helps identify similar parsing flaws in other image formats supported by the application, ensuring a more robust security posture against malformed input attacks.