ImageMagick up to 6.9.13-39/7.1.2-14 Digital Image Parser coders/stegano.c ReadSTEGANOImage memory leak

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability has been found in ImageMagick up to 6.9.13-39/7.1.2-14 and classified as problematic. Affected by this issue is the function ReadSTEGANOImage of the file coders/stegano.c of the component Digital Image Parser. Performing a manipulation results in memory leak. This vulnerability is cataloged as CVE-2026-25796. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. There is no exploit available. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in ImageMagick up to 6.9.13-39/7.1.2-14. It has been classified as problematic. This affects the function ReadSTEGANOImage of the file coders/stegano.c of the component Digital Image Parser. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory leak vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-401. The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory. This is going to have an impact on availability. The summary by CVE is:

ImageMagick is free and open-source software used for editing and manipulating digital images. Prior to versions 7.1.2-15 and 6.9.13-40, in `ReadSTEGANOImage()` (`coders/stegano.c`), the `watermark` Image object is not freed on three early-return paths, resulting in a definite memory leak (~13.5KB+ per invocation) that can be exploited for denial of service. Versions 7.1.2-15 and 6.9.13-40 contain a patch.

The advisory is shared at github.com. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-25796 since 02/05/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. No form of authentication is needed for exploitation. It demands that the victim is doing some kind of user interaction. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available. MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1499 for this issue.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 299897 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-25796), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.9.13-40 or 7.1.2-15 eliminates this vulnerability.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (299897) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2026-0484). If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

Affected

• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• SUSE openSUSE
• Open Source ImageMagick

Productinfo

Type

• Image Processing Software

Name

• ImageMagick

Version

• 6.9.13-39
• 7.1.2-14

License

• open-source

Website

• Product: https://www.imagemagick.org/

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