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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2025-55304 json

Exiv2 has quadratic performance in ICC profile parsing in JpegBase::readMetadata

published 2025-08-29 14 mo ago modified 2026-10-19 20 d ago also EUVD-2025-26206 , GHSA-m54q-mm9w-fp6g , JLSEC-2026-1315 , PYSEC-2026-1355

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 16%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Exiv2 is a C++ library and a command-line utility to read, write, delete and modify Exif, IPTC, XMP and ICC image metadata. A denial-of-service was found in Exiv2 version 0.28.5: a quadratic algorithm in the ICC profile parsing code in jpegBase::readMetadata() can cause Exiv2 to run for a long time. The denial-of-service is triggered when Exiv2 is used to read the metadata of a crafted jpg image file. The bug is fixed in version 0.28.6.

Patch / fix

  • exiv2 exiv2 0.28.6
  • jim-easterbrook python-exiv2 0.17.5
  • exiv2 Debian 14 0.28.7+dfsg-2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-55304

  • exiv2 SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 0.28.8-160000.1.1
  • exiv2-0_26 SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +2 more 0.26-150400.9.27.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:20923-1SUSE-SU-2026:0231-1

  • exiv2 openSUSE Leap 16.0 0.28.8-160000.1.1
  • exiv2 openSUSE Tumbleweed 0.28.8-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:20410-1openSUSE-SU-2026:10298-1

  • exiv2 Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 0.28.6-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2025-55304

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org 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-2025-55304 updated cvss 3.3

exiv2: Exiv2 has quadratic performance in ICC profile parsing

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 exiv2, exiv2-libs Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 exiv2, exiv2-libs, compat-exiv2-023, compat-exiv2-026
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 exiv2, exiv2-libs, compat-exiv2-026 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 exiv2, exiv2-libs Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 exiv2
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”

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
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
14 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.25% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 16% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/issues/3333 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 1.8 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA 4.0 1.8 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
OSV 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi exiv2
<=0.17.3
 no fix listed
julia Exiv2_jll
all versions
 no fix listed

Affected products

  • Exiv2 exiv2

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-407 Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity

References

Sources

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.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.