Quantum Secular Labs / Blog / Advisories
CVE-2026-112393: Python Pillow: Buffer overflow
CVE-2026-112393 is rated critical with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 and affects Python Pillow. Per its scoring, it can be exploited over the network, without authentication, without any user interaction. The scored impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability is the highest available.
Vulnerability description
Pillow is a Python imaging library. From 2.0.0 until 13.0.0, Pillow has a heap buffer overflow and stale-heap disclosure in _tiffWriteProc when saving compressed TIFF data through libtiff to a target without a usable fileno(), such as BytesIO. The callback sizes its allocation from the prior buffer size instead of the current write position, allowing an attacker-controlled out-of-line TIFF tag or retained ICC profile to be copied beyond the allocation after libtiff seeks forward. This overflow can crash the process and may allow code execution. Independently, unwritten alignment gaps in compressed TIFF output larger than 64 KiB can disclose stale heap bytes without a crafted tag. File paths and targets with real file descriptors are unaffected. This issue is fixed in version 13.0.0.
Severity breakdown
CVSS v3.1 9.8: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Attack vector: Network. Exploitable remotely over the network, with no need for local or physical access.
- Attack complexity: Low. No special conditions; the attack can be repeated reliably.
- Privileges required: None. No account or prior access is needed.
- User interaction: None. No action from any user is needed.
- Scope: Unchanged. Impact stays within the vulnerable component.
- Confidentiality impact: High. Total loss of confidentiality; sensitive data can be fully disclosed.
- Integrity impact: High. Total loss of integrity; data or system state can be fully modified.
- Availability impact: High. Total loss of availability; the component can be shut down.
Underlying weakness
CWE-122: Heap-based Buffer Overflow
The product writes past the end of a buffer that was allocated on the heap.
Affected products
- Python Pillow: from 2.0.0 before 13.0.0