ImagemagickApplication

CVE-2014-9915

MEDIUM · 5.5 CVSS v3.0 Published 2017-03-23
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 6.6.0-3 or later.
See remediation →
58/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
No privileges

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
Off-by-one error in ImageMagick before 6.6.0-4 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) via a crafted 8BIM profile.

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 · moderate confidence

An off-by-one error exists in ImageMagick versions prior to 6.6.0-4 in the handling of 8BIM profile data (image metadata resources). When processing a specially crafted 8BIM profile, the buffer boundary is miscalculated by one byte, leading to an out-of-bounds memory access that causes the application to crash, resulting in denial of service.

MitigationUpgrade ImageMagick to version 6.6.0-4 or later to obtain the patched binary. As a defense-in-depth measure, consider implementing image validation/sanitization before processing untrusted images or disabling 8BIM profile parsing if not required.

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
ImagemagickApplication
Affected:<= 6.6.0-3

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
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Determine installed ImageMagick version
    Run `convert --version` or `identify --version` to display the version number of the installed ImageMagick binary
    Affected if The reported version is 6.6.0-3 or earlier (any version <= 6.6.0-3)
  2. Confirm 8BIM profile parsing is available
    Verify ImageMagick was built with support for 8BIM profiles - this is typically enabled by default in standard ImageMagick builds. Use `identify -list configure` to check for 8BIM in the delegates or features list
    Affected if 8BIM profile support is compiled into the ImageMagick installation (default behavior in most builds)
  3. Identify if untrusted images with metadata are processed
    Audit image processing workflows to determine whether the system accepts or processes image files from untrusted sources that may contain embedded 8BIM metadata (common in Photoshop-generated images such as PSD, JPEG, or TIFF files)
    Affected if The environment processes, resizes, converts, or otherwise manipulates image files from untrusted or user-uploaded sources that may contain 8BIM profile data

A system is affected if it runs ImageMagick version 6.6.0-3 or earlier AND processes image files (especially from untrusted sources) that contain 8BIM profile metadata, as this triggers the off-by-one buffer error during profile parsing.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 data
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 6.6.0-3
Interim mitigation

Upgrade ImageMagick to version 6.6.0-4 or later to obtain the patched binary. As a defense-in-depth measure, consider implementing image validation/sanitization before processing untrusted images or disabling 8BIM profile parsing if not required.

Fix this in Imagemagick Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA3.0 h
14.0 hours of engineering $2,400
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2014-9915 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2014-9915 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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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