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LibpngApplication · Greg Roelofs

CVE-2004-0597

HIGH · 10.0 CVSS v2.0 Published 2004-11-23
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 1.2.5 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
High EPSS Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

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 · unedited
Multiple buffer overflows in libpng 1.2.5 and earlier, as used in multiple products, allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via malformed PNG images in which (1) the png_handle_tRNS function does not properly validate the length of transparency chunk (tRNS) data, or the (2) png_handle_sBIT or (3) png_handle_hIST functions do not perform sufficient bounds checking.

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

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

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
LibpngApplication
Affected:<= 1.2.5
Msn MessengerApplication
Affected:= 6.1= 6.2
Windows Media PlayerApplication
Affected:= 9
Windows MessengerApplication
Affected:= 5.0
Windows 98seOperating system
Affected:all versions
Windows MeOperating system
Affected:all versions

CVSS 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
Complete
Integrity
Complete
Availability
Complete

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

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.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 1.2.5
Vendor patch www.adobe.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

libpng 1.2.6 or later

  1. Identify all applications and systems using libpng 1.2.5 or earlier by checking binary dependencies or library versions
  2. Obtain libpng version 1.2.6 or later from the official libpng source repository at http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html
  3. Replace the vulnerable libpng library files (libpng.dll, libpng.so, or libpng.dylib depending on OS) with the updated version
  4. Rebuild or recompile any applications statically linked against the vulnerable libpng library to incorporate the fix
  5. Restart all services or applications that use libpng to ensure the patched library is loaded
  6. Verify the patch was applied correctly by checking that libpng version now reports 1.2.6 or higher using utilities like 'pnglibconfig' or examining the library binary
Caveat Minimal risk - this is a security-only bug fix with no API or ABI changes; applications should function identically after the upgrade

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2004-0597 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data