CVE-2002-0728
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedBuffer overflow in the progressive reader for libpng 1.2.x before 1.2.4, and 1.0.x before 1.0.14, allows attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a PNG data stream that has more IDAT data than indicated by the IHDR chunk.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceBuffer overflow in libpng's progressive reader where a PNG file contains more IDAT (image data) chunk data than the IHDR (image header) chunk specifies, leading to memory corruption and potential crash.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 1.0.14= 1.2.4CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify installed libpng versionUse 'pnglibconf.h' or check the library binary directly. On Linux: 'ldd' or 'dpkg -l | grep libpng', 'rpm -qa | grep libpng', or check '/usr/include/png.h' for PNG_LIBPNG_VER_STRING. On Windows: check the DLL version properties or linked library headers.Affected if The version is 1.0.14 or earlier in the 1.0.x branch, or 1.2.4 or earlier in the 1.2.x branch (1.2.0-1.2.4).
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Confirm progressive reading is usedSearch source code for calls to 'png_progressive_read_ptr', 'png_process_data', or 'png_set_progressive_read_fn' - these indicate the application uses libpng's progressive reading API.Affected if The application code invokes libpng's progressive reading functions to process PNG files incrementally rather than using the standard 'png_read_png' or 'png_read_image' functions.
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Verify PNG input handlingReview application code that processes PNG files from untrusted sources (user uploads, network data, file parsing). Check if the application passes external or user-supplied PNG data to the libpng progressive API without prior validation of the IDAT/IHDR consistency.Affected if The application accepts PNG files from untrusted sources and processes them using libpng progressive functions without validating that IDAT data size matches IHDR dimensions.
A user is affected if they have libpng version 1.0.14 or earlier (1.0.x) or 1.2.4 or earlier (1.2.x) AND their application uses libpng's progressive reading API to process untrusted PNG files.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataUpgrade libpng to version 1.2.4 or later (1.2.x branch) or 1.0.14 or later (1.0.x branch) to resolve the boundary validation issue in the progressive reading code.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2002-0728 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2002-0728 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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