libpng 1.6.43/1.6.44/1.6.45/1.6.46 buffer overflow

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability identified as critical has been detected in libpng 1.6.43/1.6.44/1.6.45/1.6.46. This affects an unknown part. The manipulation leads to buffer overflow. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2025-28162. The attack is possible to be carried out remotely. No exploit exists.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in libpng 1.6.43/1.6.44/1.6.45/1.6.46. This issue affects some unknown functionality. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a buffer overflow vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-120. The product copies an input buffer to an output buffer without verifying that the size of the input buffer is less than the size of the output buffer, leading to a buffer overflow. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

Buffer Overflow vulnerability in libpng 1.6.43-1.6.46 allows a local attacker to cause a denial of service via the pngimage with AddressSanitizer (ASan), the program leaks memory in various locations, eventually leading to high memory usage and causing the program to become unresponsive

The advisory is shared at github.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2025-28162 since 03/11/2025. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be initiated remotely. No form of authentication is needed for a successful exploitation. It demands that the victim is doing some kind of user interaction. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 02/03/2026).

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 296923 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2025-28162), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (296923) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2026-0237). If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

Affected

• Ubuntu Linux
• Open Source libpng

Productinfo

Type

• Image Processing Software

Name

• libpng

Version

• 1.6.43
• 1.6.44
• 1.6.45
• 1.6.46

License

• open-source

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Entryinfo

If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

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