Asymmetric Resource Consumption (Amplification) in libheif - #VU158744
Published: November 3, 2026
Vulnerability identifier: #VU158744
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: N/A
CWE-ID: CWE-405
Exploitation vector: Remote access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vulnerability details
The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to cause a denial of service through CPU exhaustion in applications that decode untrusted HEIF files using libheif.
The vulnerability exists due to asymmetric resource consumption in libheif's derived-image decoding when processing crafted HEIF files that repeatedly decode large images while retaining little or none of their output. A remote attacker can supply a small HEIF file that causes repeated construction or decoding of large images within the item-decode count limit to exhaust CPU resources.
Decoding can succeed and return a small, correct image despite the excessive CPU consumption.
Affected software
libheif
Remediation
Install security update from vendor's website.
libheif - update to 1.23.7