LibTIFF 4.7.0 tiffcmp tools/tiffcmp.c memory leak ⚔ [Disputed]

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as problematic has been found in LibTIFF 4.7.0. This vulnerability affects the function _TIFFmallocExt/_TIFFCheckRealloc/TIFFHashSetNew/InitCCITTFax3 of the file tools/tiffcmp.c of the component tiffcmp. The manipulation leads to memory leak. This vulnerability is listed as CVE-2025-9165. The attack must be carried out locally. In addition, an exploit is available. The real existence of this vulnerability is still doubted at the moment. It is recommended to apply a patch to fix this issue. A researcher disputes the security impact of this issue, because "this is a memory leak on a command line tool that is about to exit anyway". In the reply the project maintainer declares this issue as "a simple 'bug' when leaving the command line tool and (...) not a security issue at all".

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in LibTIFF 4.7.0. It has been rated as problematic. This issue affects the function _TIFFmallocExt/_TIFFCheckRealloc/TIFFHashSetNew/InitCCITTFax3 of the file tools/tiffcmp.c of the component tiffcmp. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory leak vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-401. The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory. Impacted is availability.

It is possible to read the advisory at gitlab.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2025-9165. The exploitation is known to be difficult. Attacking locally is a requirement. Technical details as well as a public exploit are known.

The exploit is available at drive.google.com. It is declared as proof-of-concept. The real existence of this vulnerability is still doubted at the moment. A researcher disputes the security impact of this issue, because "this is a memory leak on a command line tool that is about to exit anyway". In the reply the project maintainer declares this issue as "a simple 'bug' when leaving the command line tool and (...) not a security issue at all". The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 254437 (Fedora 44 : libtiff (2025-c612cbc58f)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Applying the patch ed141286a37f6e5ddafb5069347ff5d587e7a4e0 is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at gitlab.com.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (254437) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2026-1730). Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Xerox FreeFlow Print Server

Productinfo

Type

• Image Processing Software

Name

• LibTIFF

Version

• 4.7.0

License

• open-source

Website

• Product: http://www.libtiff.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Submitinfo

Accepted

• Submit #630506: libtiff tiffcmp 4.7.0+ (latest master branch) Memory Leak (by HeureuxBuilding)

Duplicate

• Submit #XXXXXX: Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxx X.x.x+ (xxxxxx Xxxxxx Xxxxxx) Xxxxxx Xxxx (by HeureuxBuilding)

Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

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