NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in FreeImage before 1.18.0 via the FreeImage_CloneTag function inFreeImageTag.cpp.

published 2023-08-22 3 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-27448

cvss: 6.5; version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.7%; EPSS 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 54%
public exploits: 0; none known

Patch / fix

fixed in 1

freeimage_project freeimage 1.18.0

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-2021-40264 updated 2025-11-21 cvss 6.5

freeimage: NULL pointer dereference via FreeImage_CloneTag() in inFreeImageTag.cpp

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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: Proof of concept is public
Automatable: no
Technical impact: partial
Assessed: 2 y ago (2024-10-03)

Exploit prediction

0.73% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 54% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

sourceforge.net https://sourceforge.net/p/freeimage/bugs/335/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	3.1	6.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Classification

Weakness

CWE-476 NULL Pointer Dereference

References

sourceforge.net /p/freeimage/bugs/335/
exploit, issue-tracking

Sources

CVE List CVE-2021-40264
NVD CVE-2021-40264

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