CVE-2026-53532
HighCVSS 7.1Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk18th percentile - higher than 18% of all known CVEs
Summary
OpenEXR is the reference implementation and specification for the EXR image format, widely used in the motion picture industry. In versions 3.4.0 through 3.4.12, a crafted HTJ2K-compressed EXR file causes an unconditional process abort in any application that calls exr_start_read() on untrusted input, resulting in denial of service. The crash is triggered by a QCD marker whose lower five bits are zero, which OpenEXR passes into the vendored OpenJPH library while constructing the codestream and evaluating its quantization delta parameters. OpenJPH uses an assertion rather than a recoverable error to validate those bits, so any invalid value calls abort() directly and cannot be intercepted by surrounding error handling, a problem compounded by OpenEXR wrapping only its internal HT header parser in error handling while leaving the later codestream read and construction calls unprotected. This issue has been resolved in version 3.4.13.
Risk Assessment
An attacker could cause a crash in applications processing untrusted EXR files, leading to denial of service and potential operational disruptions.
Recommendation
It is recommended to immediately update OpenEXR to version 3.4.13 or later, which includes a fix for this vulnerability.
Other vulnerabilities in OpenEXR
See all- CVE-2017-12596High
In OpenEXR 2.2.0, a crafted image causes a heap-based buffer over-read in the hufDecode function in IlmImf/ImfHuf.cpp during exrmaketiled execution; it may result in denial of service or possibly unspecified other impact.
- CVE-2017-9115High
In OpenEXR 2.2.0, an invalid write of size 2 in the = operator function in half.h could cause the application to crash or execute arbitrary code.
- CVE-2017-9113High
In OpenEXR 2.2.0, an invalid write of size 1 in the bufferedReadPixels function in ImfInputFile.cpp could cause the application to crash or execute arbitrary code.
- CVE-2017-9111High
In OpenEXR 2.2.0, an invalid write of size 8 in the storeSSE function in ImfOptimizedPixelReading.h could cause the application to crash or execute arbitrary code.
- CVE-2026-42217Critical
OpenEXR versions from 3.0.0 to before 3.2.9, 3.3.0 to before 3.3.11, and 3.4.0 to before 3.4.11 have an issue with the readVariableLengthInteger() function that decodes a variable-length integer from untrusted EXR input without bounding the shift count. After enough continuation bytes, the code executes a left shift by 70 on a 64-bit value, leading to undefined behavior.
- CVE-2026-42216Critical
In OpenEXR versions 3.0.0 to before 3.2.9, 3.3.0 to before 3.3.11, and 3.4.0 to before 3.4.11, a vulnerability exists in the IDManifest::init() function. When reconstructing strings from a prefix-compressed representation, the code reads bytes without verifying that the current string has at least two bytes, potentially causing an out-of-bounds read.
- CVE-2026-88384Medium
OpenEXR 3.4.14 contains a NULL Pointer Dereference in the C++ attribute parsing path. A specially crafted EXR file containing an unknown-type attribute with dataSize set to zero causes the parser to create an opaque attribute with a NULL packed_data pointer. The OpaqueAttribute constructor passes the NULL pointer to memcpy() without validating the zero-size condition, resulting in undefined behavior and process termination.
- CVE-2026-68515High
OpenEXR before versions 3.2.11, 3.3.13, and 3.4.14 contains a vulnerability in the exrmultiview utility that can write past a heap allocation when combining two attacker-supplied, individually valid scanline EXR files whose union dataWindow is not aligned to one view's channel subsampling. This leads to a heap out-of-bounds write.
- CVE-2026-68514Medium
PyOpenEXR versions 3.3.0-3.3.12 and 3.4.0-3.4.13 have a heap out-of-bounds write vulnerability when reading a crafted deep scanline EXR file. A specially crafted file with a 'left' channel and layer-prefixed RGB channels can cause a buffer overflow and crash.
- CVE-2026-68513High
OpenEXR versions 3.3.0 through 3.3.12 and 3.4.0 through 3.4.13 contain a heap buffer overflow in PyOpenEXR triggered by a channel-name key collision between literal and prefixed RGB channels. A crafted EXR file can cause an out-of-bounds write in a NumPy array during pixel decoding.
Original NVD description (English source)
OpenEXR is the reference implementation and specification for the EXR image format, widely used in the motion picture industry. In versions 3.4.0 through 3.4.12, a crafted HTJ2K-compressed EXR file causes an unconditional process abort in any application that calls exr_start_read() on untrusted input, resulting in denial of service. The crash is triggered by a QCD marker whose lower five bits are zero, which OpenEXR passes into the vendored OpenJPH library while constructing the codestream and evaluating its quantization delta parameters. OpenJPH uses an assertion rather than a recoverable error to validate those bits, so any invalid value calls abort() directly and cannot be intercepted by surrounding error handling, a problem compounded by OpenEXR wrapping only its internal HT header parser in error handling while leaving the later codestream read and construction calls unprotected. This issue has been resolved in version 3.4.13.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS

