ImageMagick Vulnerability Enables Remote Code Execution via Malicious File Names

A critical security vulnerability has been discovered in ImageMagick, the widely-used open-source image processing software, potentially allowing remote code execution through maliciously crafted filename patterns.

The vulnerability, assigned CVE-2025-53101 , affects multiple versions of the popular image manipulation toolkit and has been classified as a high-severity security issue with a CVSS score of 7.4.

The vulnerability, categorized as CWE-124 (Buffer Underwrite), resides in the InterpretImageFilename() function within ImageMagick’s MagickCore/image.c file.

Security researchers discovered that when processing filename templates containing multiple consecutive %d format specifiers, the software’s internal pointer arithmetic generates memory addresses below the beginning of the stack buffer, resulting in a dangerous stack overflow condition.

The vulnerability specifically occurs during the magick mogrify command’s filename template processing.

When attackers specify patterns like %d%d in filename templates, the software’s offset correction mechanism becomes inconsistent with actual template structures.

The vulnerable code uses a static offset calculation of offset += (4 - field_width) that was designed for typical format specifiers but fails to account for varying format lengths.

This design vulnerability causes the offset value to increase excessively when format specifiers appear consecutively, creating a scenario where the write destination address points to memory locations before the intended filename buffer.

Testing conducted on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with AddressSanitizer revealed that the vulnerability triggers a stack-buffer-overflow error, with the system attempting to write data to memory addresses outside the allocated stack buffer range.

The issue manifests through the vsnprintf() function, which receives the malformed memory address and attempts to write formatted output to an invalid location.

ImageMagick Vulnerability

The vulnerability poses significant security risks due to its network-based attack vector, though exploitation requires high complexity. Security analysts have identified several key characteristics of this threat:

• Attack Requirements: No special privileges or user interaction required for exploitation.
  
• Target Systems: Particularly concerning for systems processing user-supplied image files or filename patterns through web interfaces or automated processing pipelines.
  
• Affected Versions: Impacts ImageMagick versions prior to 7.1.1-47 and 6.9.13-25, encompassing a substantial portion of deployed installations.
  
• Security Impact: High integrity and availability risks, suggesting successful exploitation could lead to system compromise or service disruption.
  
• Confidentiality Risk: Rated as none, though the ability to corrupt memory and potentially execute arbitrary code makes this vulnerability a priority for immediate remediation.
  
• Exploitation Complexity: High complexity required, but the network-based nature increases the potential attack surface.

Recommended Immediate Updates

ImageMagick maintainers have responded quickly to address the vulnerability, releasing patched versions 7.1.2-0 and 6.9.13-26 that implement proper bounds checking and offset calculation improvements.

The fix replaces the static offset correction with dynamic calculation based on the actual difference between template description length and output bytes written, ensuring buffer position consistency regardless of format specifier combinations.

Organizations using ImageMagick should immediately update to the patched versions and implement additional security measures such as input validation for filename patterns.

System administrators should also consider implementing network-level protections and monitoring for unusual image processing activities.

The vulnerability’s discovery highlights the importance of rigorous security testing in widely-deployed image processing libraries that handle user-supplied data.

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