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Magick's failure to limit the depth of SVG file reads caused a DoS attack.

Moderate
dlemstra published GHSA-p27m-hp98-6637 Dec 30, 2025

Package

ImageMagick (C/C++)

Affected versions

< 7.1.2-12

Patched versions

7.1.2-12

Description

Summary

Using Magick to read a malicious SVG file resulted in a DoS attack.

Details

bt obtained using gdb:

#4 0x0000555555794c9c in ResizeMagickMemory (memory=0x7fffee203800, size=391344) at MagickCore/memory.c:1443
#5 0x0000555555794e5a in ResizeQuantumMemory (memory=0x7fffee203800, count=48918, quantum=8) 
at MagickCore/memory.c:1508
#6 0x0000555555acc8ed in SVGStartElement (context=0x517000000080, name=0x5190000055e3 "g", attributes=0x0) 
at coders/svg.c:1254
#7 0x00007ffff6799b1c in xmlParseStartTag () at /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxml2.so.2
#8 0x00007ffff68c7bb8 in () at /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxml2.so.2
#9 0x00007ffff67a03f1 in xmlParseChunk () at /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxml2.so.2

This is related to the SVGStartElement and ResizeQuantumMemory functions.

PoC

  1. Generate an SVG file

  2. Read this file using Magick:

./magick /data/ylwang/Tools/LargeScan/targets/ImageMagick/test++/1.svg null
  1. Causes a DoS Attack

My server has a large amount of memory, causing a stack overflow to take a long time. I'll use the Windows release version as an example:

PS C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-7.1.2-Q8> .\magick.exe -ping 1.svg null:
PS C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-7.1.2-Q8> echo $LASTEXITCODE
-1073741571

The error code -1073741571 indicates a crash due to a stack overflow.

Impact

This is a DoS vulnerability and all applications using Magick to parse SVG files are affected.

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

CVE ID

CVE-2025-68618

Weaknesses

Uncontrolled Recursion

The product does not properly control the amount of recursion that takes place, consuming excessive resources, such as allocated memory or the program stack. Learn more on MITRE.

Credits