Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in libheif - CVE-2026-50142
Published: June 26, 2026
Vulnerability identifier: #VU135511
CSH Severity: Medium
CVSS v4: 8.7 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]
CVE-ID: CVE-2026-50142
CWE-ID: CWE-770
Exploitation vector: Remote access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vulnerability details
The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to cause a denial of service.
The vulnerability exists due to allocation of resources without limits or throttling in Box_stsz::parse() fixed-size mode when parsing a crafted HEIF sequence file through the public C API. A remote attacker can supply a crafted HEIF sequence file with an excessive sample_count value to cause a denial of service.
Only the file parser is exercised, and no decoder backend is required.
Affected software
libheif
Ubuntu
libheif (Ubuntu package)
Ubuntu
libheif (Ubuntu package)
How to mitigate CVE-2026-50142
Install security update from vendor's website.
libheif - update to 1.23.0
libheif (Ubuntu package) - addressed in versions 1.20.2-1ubuntu0.6, 1.21.2-3ubuntu0.3
libheif (Ubuntu package) - addressed in versions 1.20.2-1ubuntu0.6, 1.21.2-3ubuntu0.3