Technical impact
A heap buffer over‑read has been discovered in GIMP’s icns_slurp() function when it parses specially crafted ICNS files. This flaw, classified as CWE‑125, can cause the application to read beyond the bounds of its input buffer, potentially leading to a crash or the leakage of memory contents. The disclosed memory data may contain sensitive information that was present on the system at the time of processing the file. The vulnerability therefore primarily enables information disclosure, and secondarily application instability.
Affected Systems
The defect exists in GIMP packages shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, 7, 8, and 9. No specific GIMP version numbers are provided in the record, implying that any installation of GIMP on those distributions is potentially vulnerable unless a patched build is deployed. Users running older or unsupported operating systems that still employ GIMP may also be at risk, but this has not been explicitly documented.
Risk and Exploitability
The CVSS score of 5 indicates a medium severity issue. The likely attack vector is local or remote file input: an attacker must supply a malicious ICNS file that GIMP subsequently opens. As the EPSS score is not available and the vulnerability is not listed in CISA’s KEV catalog, there is no evidence of widespread exploitation at present. However, the potential for sensitive data leakage warrants monitoring especially in environments where untrusted image files are processed.
