CVE-2022-35087VulnerabilityPublished 20 Sep 2022Updated 28 May 2025

CVE-2022-35087: n/a

Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.5 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.5Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 23% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 20 Sep 2022
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-26.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2022-35087, European organizations should first identify any usage of SWFTools within their environments, especially in media processing or conversion workflows involving GIF files. Since no official patches are currently available, organizations should consider the following practical steps: 1) Restrict access to systems running SWFTools to trusted users only, minimizing the risk of unintentional triggering of the vulnerability. 2) Avoid processing untrusted or unauthenticated GIF files through SWFTools to prevent exploitation via crafted inputs. 3) Implement application-level sandboxing or containerization to isolate SWFTools processes, limiting the impact of crashes or memory corruption. 4) Monitor logs and system behavior for crashes or abnormal terminations related to SWFTools usage. 5) If possible, replace SWFTools with alternative, actively maintained tools for GIF to SWF conversion that do not exhibit this vulnerability. 6) Engage with the open-source community or maintainers to track patch releases or updates addressing this issue. 7) Educate users about the risk of opening or processing suspicious GIF files locally. These targeted mitigations go beyond generic advice by focusing on usage context, access control, and operational adjustments specific to SWFTools and the nature of the vulnerability.

Description

SWFTools commit 772e55a2 was discovered to contain a segmentation violation via MovieAddFrame at /src/gif2swf.c.

Impact

For European organizations, the primary impact of CVE-2022-35087 is a denial of service condition affecting systems that utilize SWFTools for media processing workflows. This could disrupt automated pipelines or user operations involving GIF to SWF conversion, potentially impacting digital content production, archival, or web publishing environments. Although the vulnerability does not directly compromise confidentiality or integrity, repeated crashes or exploitation attempts could degrade service availability and productivity. Organizations relying on legacy Flash content or media conversion tools may be more exposed. The lack of remote exploitability reduces the risk of widespread attacks, but insider threats or compromised local accounts could trigger the vulnerability. Additionally, organizations with compliance requirements for service availability or operational continuity should consider the risk of disruption. Since SWFTools is niche software, the overall impact is limited to specific sectors such as media companies, digital archives, or software development teams using these tools within Europe.

Summary

CVE-2022-35087 is a medium-severity vulnerability identified in SWFTools, specifically related to a segmentation violation occurring in the function MovieAddFrame within the source file gif2swf.c. This vulnerability is categorized under CWE-125 (Out-of-bounds Read), CWE-787 (Out-of-bounds Write), and CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference), indicating that the flaw involves improper memory handling leading to potential crashes or undefined behavior. The segmentation violation suggests that when processing certain GIF frames to convert them into SWF format, the software may access invalid memory regions, causing the application to crash or behave unpredictably. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 5.5, reflecting a medium severity level. The vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H indicates that the attack requires local access (AV:L), low attack complexity (AC:L), no privileges (PR:N), but does require user interaction (UI:R). The scope is unchanged (S:U), and the impact is limited to availability (A:H) with no confidentiality or integrity impact. There are no known exploits in the wild, and no patches or vendor information are provided, which suggests limited public exposure or vendor engagement. The vulnerability could be triggered by a user opening or processing a crafted GIF file through SWFTools, leading to denial of service due to application crash or potential memory corruption. Given the nature of SWFTools as a collection of utilities for working with Adobe Flash files, this vulnerability primarily affects environments where SWFTools is used for media conversion or processing tasks involving GIF to SWF transformations.

CWE-125Out-of-bounds Read (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessCWE Top 25 (2025): #8
The product reads data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.
Implementation · Input Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
Architecture and Design · Language Selection
Use a language that provides appropriate memory abstractions.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
XML Security (opens in a new tab)
Mass Assignment (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V13.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.4 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.3 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Overread Buffers (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).
CWE-787Out-of-bounds Write (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #5
The product writes data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.
Requirements · Language Selection
Use a language that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
Architecture and Design · Libraries or Frameworks
Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
Operation · Build and Compilation · Environment Hardening
Use automatic buffer overflow detection mechanisms that are offered by certain compilers or compiler extensions. Examples include: the Microsoft Visual Studio /GS flag, Fedora/Red Hat FORTIFY_SOURCE GCC flag, StackGuard, and ProPolice, which provide various mechanisms including canary-based detection and range/index…
OWASP Cheat Sheets
XML Security (opens in a new tab)
Mass Assignment (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V13.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.4 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.3 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).
CWE-476NULL Pointer Dereference (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: MediumCWE Top 25 (2025): #13OWASP Top 10 A10:2025: Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions (opens in a new tab)
The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.
Implementation
For any pointers that could have been modified or provided from a function that can return NULL, check the pointer for NULL before use. When working with a multithreaded or otherwise asynchronous environment, ensure that proper locking APIs are used to lock before the check, and unlock when it has finished.
Requirements
Select a programming language that is not susceptible to these issues.
Implementation
Check the results of all functions that return a value and verify that the value is non-null before acting upon it.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Logging (opens in a new tab)
Error Handling (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V11.1.7 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 7 Jul 2025, 08:40 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-125, CWE-787, CWE-476

Technical details

References

Community reviews

Related threats