CVE-2026-50142
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 · uneditedlibheif is a HEIF and AVIF file format decoder and encoder. From 1.19.0 until 1.23.0, a crafted HEIF sequence accepted by heif_context_read_from_memory() with the msf1 sequence brand can cause unbounded heap allocation. In libheif/sequences/seq_boxes.cc, Box_stsz::parse() applies max_sequence_frames only to variable-size samples, so fixed-size mode accepts an attacker-controlled sample_count without a bound. In libheif/sequences/track.cc, Track::load() also adds current_sample_idx and samples_per_chunk in 32-bit arithmetic, allowing the consistency check to be bypassed by wraparound. The resulting values reach the Chunk::Chunk() allocation path, which can consume gigabytes of memory and crash or stall the process through memory exhaustion. This issue is fixed in version 1.23.0.
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 analysisAn arithmetic operation produces a value too large for its type and wraps around to an unexpected — often tiny or negative — number. That miscalculated value then drives a memory allocation or a bounds check, opening the door to corruption. The fix is checked arithmetic and validating sizes before they're used.
General guidance for the integer 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 →
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
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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 · scopedlibheif version 1.23.0
- Upgrade libheif to version 1.23.0 or later
- Verify the upgrade by checking the library version (e.g., `heif-enc --version` or checking pkg-config)
- If using a package manager, update via: `apt-get update && apt-get install libheif1` (Debian/Ubuntu), `yum update libheif` (RHEL/CentOS), or `brew upgrade libheif` (macOS)
- If building from source, download version 1.23.0 or later from the libheif releases page and rebuild
- Re-test any HEIF/AVIF processing functionality to confirm normal operation
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
There is no version to upgrade to and no patch to apply. Every affected install stays exposed until the vendor ships a fix — or somebody else builds one.
Free. We build fixes in the order the community asks for them — and we’ll tell you the moment this one lands.
We develop and verify an original fix where the vendor hasn’t, from $8,000. Deployed to your staging first — never straight to production.
Scope it with usSee what else the community needs solved on the solutions-needed board.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2026-50142 — 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-2026-50142 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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