Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian
CVE-2017-14733
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 · uneditedReadRLEImage in coders/rle.c in GraphicsMagick 1.3.26 mishandles RLE headers that specify too few colors, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (heap-based buffer over-read and application crash) via a crafted file.
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 confidenceA heap-based buffer over-read vulnerability exists in GraphicsMagick 1.3.26's ReadRLEImage function in coders/rle.c. The vulnerability occurs when processing RLE (Run-Length Encoding) image files whose headers specify fewer colors than expected, causing the parser to read beyond allocated buffer boundaries and trigger a denial of service via application 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
Debian LinuxOperating system
= 8.0= 9.0= 1.3.26CVSS 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
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify GraphicsMagick installation and versionRun 'gm version' or check package manager: dpkg -l | grep graphicsmagick (Debian) or rpm -qa | grep graphicsmagick (RHEL-based)Affected if Installed version is exactly 1.3.26 (or falls within the 1.3.26 range if other variants exist)
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Verify RLE coder module is loadedRun 'gm identify -list configure' and look for RLE in the coders list, or check if coders/rle.c exists in the installation directoryAffected if RLE coder is available and compiled into the GraphicsMagick installation
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Check if RLE format support is enabledRun 'gm identify -list format' and look for RLE entry, or attempt 'gm identify sample.rle' on a test RLE file to see if the format is recognizedAffected if RLE format is listed as supported or the identify command processes RLE files without error
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Confirm the vulnerable coders/rle.c file is presentLocate the GraphicsMagick installation path (typically /usr/lib/GraphicsMagick-1.3.26 or similar) and verify coders/rle.c exists, or run 'gm' and check the module pathAffected if The RLE coder source file is present in the coders directory indicating RLE processing capability exists
A user is affected if they have GraphicsMagick version 1.3.26 installed with the RLE coder module available and RLE image format support enabled, allowing processing of maliciously crafted RLE files with mismatched color header values.
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 to a patched version of GraphicsMagick that addresses the insufficient bounds checking in the RLE color header parsing. Until then, disable processing of RLE image formats or implement file-type validation before processing.
Fix this in Debian Linux
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation3.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,040.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-14733 — 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-2017-14733 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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