A Heap-based Buffer Overflow vulnerability exists in jhead 3.04 and 3.05 via the RemoveSectionType function in jpgfile.c.

published 2022-03-23 4 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-14967

cvss: 7.8; version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.9%; EPSS 0.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 58%
public exploits: 0; none known

Patch / fix

distros 2

debian ubuntu

jhead Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1:3.06.0.1-2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-28278

jhead Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 1:3.00-8~ubuntu0.1
jhead Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 1:3.04-1ubuntu0.1
jhead Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 1:2.97-1+deb8u2ubuntu0.1~esm1
jhead Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 1:3.00-4+deb9u1ubuntu0.1~esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-28278

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2021-28278 updated 2025-11-21 cvss 5.5

jhead: Heap-based buffer overflow via the RemoveSectionType function in jpgfile.c

Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.87% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 58% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

github.com https://github.com/Matthias-Wandel/jhead/issues/15 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	3.1	7.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	2.0	6.8	AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness

CWE-787 Out-of-bounds Write

References

github.com /Matthias-Wandel/jhead/issues/15
exploit, issue-tracking, third-party-advisory
security.gentoo.org /glsa/202210-17
vendor-advisory, third-party-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2021-28278
NVD CVE-2021-28278

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary