After EffectsApplication · Adobe

CVE-2022-24096

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2022-03-11
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 18.4.5 / 22.2.1 or later.
See remediation →
81/100
Remediation priority · High
No privileges 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
Adobe After Effects versions 22.2 (and earlier) and 18.4.4 (and earlier) are affected by an Heap-based Buffer Overflow vulnerability that could result in arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user. Exploitation of this issue requires user interaction in that a victim must open a malicious 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
How this class of weakness works · CWE-122

Data overflows a buffer allocated on the heap, corrupting neighbouring heap structures and allocator metadata that a patient attacker can groom into control of execution. It is subtler than a stack overflow but just as dangerous. The fix is validating lengths before every write and using safe allocators and bounded operations.

General guidance for the heap-based buffer overflow class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

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
After EffectsApplication
Affected:>= 18.0, < 18.4.5>= 22.0, < 22.2.1

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
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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 18.4.5 / 22.2.1 or later
Fixed in 18.4.522.2.1
Vendor patch helpx.adobe.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

After Effects 18.4.5 or 22.2.1 (select based on your major version branch)

  1. 1. Open Adobe After Effects and go to Help > About After Effects to check your current version number
  2. 2. If your version is 18.x (18.0 through 18.4.4), upgrade to version 18.4.5
  3. 3. If your version is 22.x (22.0 through 22.2.0), upgrade to version 22.2.1
  4. 4. Download the appropriate fixed version from the official Adobe website or Creative Cloud desktop application
  5. 5. Close any running instances of After Effects
  6. 6. Run the installer and follow the on-screen prompts to complete the installation
  7. 7. After installation, verify the version by checking Help > About After Effects shows the fixed release
Caveat Minor version updates typically do not introduce breaking changes; ensure project files are backed up before upgrading as a precaution

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

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,950. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2022-24096 — 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-2022-24096 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
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