Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity in libheif - #VU158752

Vulnerability details

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to cause a denial of service through CPU exhaustion in image-processing tools distributed with libheif.

The vulnerability exists due to inefficient algorithmic complexity in the heifio helper's find_exif_tag_in_ifd() function when traversing ExifIFD pointers without limiting total entry reads or repeated visits to the same IFD. A remote attacker can supply a crafted HEIC or AVIF file to heif-thumbnailer or heif-dec, or a crafted JPEG or PNG file to heif-enc, containing many self-referencing ExifIFD entries to trigger excessive traversal and exhaust CPU resources.

Applications that use only the libheif library, including the gdk-pixbuf loader, do not execute the affected code path.

Affected software

Remediation

External References

• https://github.com/strukturag/libheif/security/advisories/GHSA-pfcm-ffqg-84hx
• https://github.com/strukturag/libheif/commit/6fb37974726abde6de7fe2206386d4a6d9ce1c39

Related Security Bulletins

• Multiple vulnerabilities in libheif