Overview
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-57803 presents a significant risk to users of ImageMagick, a widely used open-source software for editing and manipulating digital images. The flaw can lead to potential system compromise or data leakage, affecting versions of ImageMagick prior to 6.9.13-28 and 7.1.2-2 for the 32-bit build.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-57803
Severity: High (7.5 CVSS score)
Attack Vector: Local
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: No
Impact: System Compromise, Information Disclosure
Affected Products
A new way to communicate
Ameeba Chat is built on encrypted identity, not personal profiles.
Message, call, share files, and coordinate with identities kept separate.
- • Encrypted identity
- • Ameeba Chat authenticates access
- • Aliases and categories
- • End-to-end encrypted chat, calls, and files
- • Secure notes for sensitive information
Private communication, rethought.
Product | Affected Versions
ImageMagick | Prior to 6.9.13-28
ImageMagick | Prior to 7.1.2-2
How the Exploit Works
The exploit is based on a 32-bit integer overflow in ImageMagick’s BMP encoder’s scanline-stride computation. This overflow results in the collapse of bytes_per_line (stride) to a very small value. However, the per-row writer still emits 3 × width bytes for 24-bpp images. Consequently, the row base pointer advances using the overflowed stride. This leads to the first row immediately writing past its allocated heap memory and overwriting adjacent heap memory with attacker-controlled bytes. This sort of heap corruption is a common and potent attack vector in common auto-convert pipelines.
Conceptual Example Code
While actual exploit code isn’t available, an attacker might exploit the vulnerability by providing a specially crafted BMP image that triggers the integer overflow. The following pseudocode illustrates this concept:
Create BMP image with width that triggers integer overflow
Embed malicious payload in image data
Upload or submit image to ImageMagick processing pipelineUpon successful exploitation, an attacker could potentially execute arbitrary code or cause information disclosure. Immediate patching or use of a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) could serve as temporary mitigation measures. However, upgrading to a non-vulnerable version of ImageMagick is highly recommended.