CVE-2026-3713
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 · uneditedA flaw has been found in pnggroup libpng up to 1.6.55. Affected by this vulnerability is the function do_pnm2png of the file contrib/pngminus/pnm2png.c of the component pnm2png. This manipulation of the argument width/height causes heap-based buffer overflow. The attack is restricted to local execution. The exploit has been published and may be used. The project was informed of the problem early through an issue report but has not responded yet.
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 confidenceHeap-based buffer overflow in the do_pnm2png function of contrib/pngminus/pnm2png.c in libpng up to 1.6.55. The width/height arguments are not properly validated before use in heap buffer operations, allowing a local attacker to overflow the allocated buffer.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- Low
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
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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Locate the pnm2png binarySearch for the pnm2png executable on the system using 'which pnm2png' or 'find / -name pnm2png -type f 2>/dev/null'Affected if The pnm2png binary exists on the system and is executable
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Identify the libpng versionRun 'png2png --version 2>&1 || png --version 2>&1' or check the library file version with 'ldd $(which pnm2png) 2>/dev/null' to find the linked libpng version, or inspect the source file version comment in contrib/pngminus/pnm2png.c if compiling locallyAffected if The installed libpng version is 1.6.55 or earlier, or the pnm2png source is from libpng 1.6.55 or earlier
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Verify PNM input processing capabilityCheck if the system has tools that process PNM (portable anymap format) files such as 'which pnm2png', 'which pnmtopng', or look for .pnm/.ppm/.pgm/.pbm files that may be processed by pnm2pngAffected if PNM files exist or PNM processing tools are present, indicating potential use of pnm2png for conversions
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Inspect any automation or scripts using pnm2pngSearch for scripts, cron jobs, or applications that invoke pnm2png using 'grep -r "pnm2png" /etc /opt /home 2>/dev/null' or review any image conversion pipelinesAffected if Scripts or automated processes call pnm2png to convert PNM images to PNG format
A user is affected if the pnm2png utility compiled from libpng 1.6.55 or earlier is present and used to convert PNM images to PNG, as the unvalidated width/height arguments can cause heap overflow during buffer operations.
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 dataAvoid using the pnm2png utility until an official patch is released; if immediate use is required, implement strict bounds validation on width/height values before buffer allocation and ensure allocated size matches actual data dimensions.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation6.0 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-2026-3713 — 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-2026-3713 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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