CVE-2026-33809 in x-image
Summary
by MITRE • 03/25/2026
A maliciously crafted TIFF file can cause image decoding to attempt to allocate up 4GiB of memory, causing either excessive resource consumption or an out-of-memory error.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/23/2026
This vulnerability represents a critical memory exhaustion issue within TIFF image processing libraries that can be exploited through specially crafted image files. The flaw manifests when the image decoding process encounters malformed TIFF metadata that contains misleading dimension values or memory allocation parameters, causing the system to attempt allocating up to 4 gigabytes of contiguous memory. This type of vulnerability falls under the category of memory corruption issues and can be classified as a CWE-129 Input Validation vulnerability, where insufficient validation of image metadata leads to improper resource allocation. The attack vector involves an adversary crafting a malicious TIFF file that appears legitimate to users but contains crafted values that trigger excessive memory allocation during the decoding process.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple resource exhaustion, as it can lead to system instability, application crashes, and potential denial of service conditions across various software applications that process TIFF images. When systems attempt to allocate 4 gigabytes of memory for image rendering, they may experience system slowdowns, application hangs, or complete system crashes, particularly in environments with limited memory resources or where multiple image processing operations occur simultaneously. This vulnerability affects a wide range of applications including document management systems, image viewers, content management platforms, and digital asset management tools that utilize standard TIFF parsing libraries. The memory allocation behavior aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for resource exhaustion attacks, where adversaries target system resources to disrupt normal operations.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability occurs at the image parsing layer where TIFF format metadata is interpreted without adequate bounds checking or memory allocation limits. When the decoder encounters an image with malformed IFD (Image File Directory) entries or incorrect strip or tile size parameters, it may compute memory requirements based on these invalid values rather than validating them against reasonable limits. The vulnerability typically affects applications that do not implement proper memory allocation guards or that fail to validate image dimensions against system capabilities. This flaw represents a classic case of insufficient input sanitization where the system assumes that image metadata contains valid information without performing proper validation checks. Security controls should include implementing memory allocation limits, validating image dimensions against reasonable thresholds, and employing robust input validation mechanisms that prevent excessive memory requests during image processing operations. The mitigation strategies should also include regular updates to image processing libraries, implementation of resource monitoring, and deployment of sandboxing techniques to isolate image processing operations from critical system resources.