VulnerabilityPublished 25 Oct 2026

CVE-2026-116159: ImageMagick · Memory Leak

Affects ImageMagickSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.8 Medium : upgrade to 7.1.2-33 when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 15:59 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

4.8Medium

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

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 1% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 7.1.2-33, 6.9.13-58

CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Requirements: None
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Passive
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None
Vulnerable system integrity: None
Vulnerable system availability: Low
Subsequent system confidentiality: None
Subsequent system integrity: None
Subsequent system availability: None

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

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable system 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 through terminal emulation (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., using social engineering techniques to trick a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: The attacker must take no measurable action to exploit the vulnerability. The attack requires no target-specific circumvention to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable system.
Attack Requirements: None: The successful attack does not depend on the deployment and execution conditions of the vulnerable system. The attacker can expect to be able to reach the vulnerability and execute the exploit under all or most instances of the vulnerability.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: Passive: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires limited interaction by the targeted user with the vulnerable system and the attacker’s payload. These interactions would be considered involuntary and do not require that the user actively subvert protections built into the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system availability: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the Vulnerable System are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Subsequent System or all confidentiality impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Subsequent System or all integrity impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Subsequent System or all availability impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v4.0 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 25 Oct 2026
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 26 Oct 2026.

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 or the CVSS exploit maturity 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

Upgrade ImageMagick to 7.1.2-33; ImageMagick to 6.9.13-58.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
ImageMagickImageMagick	Affected >=7.0.0-0 <7.1.2-33	Fixed in 7.1.2-33
ImageMagickImageMagick	Affected <6.9.13-58	Fixed in 6.9.13-58

AI-suggested

Upgrade ImageMagick to version 6.9.13-58 or later in the 6.x branch, or to version 7.1.2-33 or later in the 7.x branch, where this memory leak has been fixed. No other mitigation or workaround is indicated.

Description

CVE-2026-116159 is a memory leak vulnerability in ImageMagick versions before 6.9.13-58 and 7.1.2-33. The flaw occurs in the handling of the -cdl (color decision list) option, where allocated memory is not properly released after use. An attacker can exploit this by supplying crafted input that triggers repeated processing of the -cdl option, causing memory to leak and potentially leading to resource exhaustion and degraded availability.

Impact

The vulnerability can lead to memory exhaustion on systems running affected versions of ImageMagick when processing crafted inputs using the -cdl option. This can degrade availability of the service or application using ImageMagick, potentially causing denial of service conditions. There is no indication of privilege escalation, code execution, or data disclosure from the provided data.

Summary

ImageMagick versions prior to 6.9.13-58 and 7.1.2-33 contain a memory leak vulnerability related to the -cdl option. The vulnerability arises because memory allocated during the processing of this option is not freed after its effective lifetime. This can be exploited by an attacker who supplies input that causes the -cdl option to be processed repeatedly, resulting in continuous memory leakage. The impact is a degradation of service availability due to resource exhaustion. The issue has been fixed in versions 6.9.13-58 and 7.1.2-33.

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 26 Oct 2026, 09:37 UTC

Technical details

References

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