Impact
A heap buffer overflow was found in Exiv2 versions v0.28.0 to v0.28.4. Versions prior to v0.28.0, such as v0.27.7, are not affected. Exiv2 is a command-line utility and C++ library for reading, writing, deleting, and modifying the metadata of image files. The heap overflow is triggered when Exiv2 is used to write metadata into a crafted image file. An attacker could potentially exploit the vulnerability to gain code execution, if they can trick the victim into running Exiv2 on a crafted image file.
Note that this bug is only triggered when writing the metadata, which is a less frequently used Exiv2 operation than reading the metadata. For example, to trigger the bug in the Exiv2 command-line application, you need to add an extra command-line argument such as fixiso.
Patches
The bug is fixed in version v0.28.5.
References
Issue: https://github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/issues/3168
Fix: https://github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/pull/3174
For more information
Please see our security policy for information about Exiv2 security.
References:- https://github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/security/advisories/GHSA-38h4-fx85-qcx7
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-26623
- https://github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/issues/3168
- https://github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/pull/3174
- https://github.com/jim-easterbrook/python-exiv2/commit/4cc875e392f9e0bc705fe03d929b9a382b78dae4
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-38h4-fx85-qcx7