CVE-2026-112897 · GHSA-q45j-58j2-45rg
Pillow: TiffDecode returns uninitialized memory as pixels for short JPEG strips
- Risk score
- 66/100
- CVSS
- 8.7 v4.0
- Exploit chance (30 days)
- 0.3%
- Published
- 19 Oct 2026
Open in the live forecast Today's forecast
What to know
- What it is
- Pillow library can return uninitialized memory as pixels when processing certain TIFF files, allowing an attacker to disclose stale heap contents. An attacker can supply a crafted TIFF to an application that loads and returns or re-encodes its pixels.
- Affected
- {'products': ['Pillow'], 'packages': ['Pillow'], 'versions': ['>= 5.3.0, < 13.0.0']}
- Fix
- Upgrade to version 13.0.0
- Exploitation
- No known exploitation
Story map
At a glance
Pillow: Amber, patch this week. Pillow has a heap buffer overflow and stale-heap disclosure in _tiffWriteProc when saving compressed TIFF data through libtiff to a target without a usable fileno(). This can crash the process and may allow code execution.
The flaws
- CVE-2026-112897: TiffDecode returns uninitialized memory as pixels for short JPEG strips (CVSS 8.7 · EPSS 0%)
- CVE-2026-112393: Heap buffer overflow in _tiffWriteProc when saving TIFF to BytesIO (CVSS 9.2 · EPSS 1%)
- CVE-2026-96639: Pillow multi-frame loaders can reuse stale native image storage after mode transitions (CVSS 9.8 · EPSS 1%)
- CVE-2026-112900: Argument Injection in Ghostscript call, potentially leading into RCE (CVSS 9.2 · EPSS 0%)
The fix
Upgrade Pillow: 13.0.0 or later on your release line
Who is exposed: {'products': ['Pillow'], 'packages': ['Pillow'], 'versions': ['>= 2.0.0, < 13.0.0']}
Where it stands
- Public proof of concept
- 1 outlet covering it
How it unfolded
- 23 Oct, The Hacker News (press): Critical Flaw in Python’s Popular Pillow Image Library Allows Code Execution via a Crafted Image
Connects to
- Same weakness: CWE-908 (CWE-908). 24 other warnings in 30 days
Why it is Amber
- CVSS 8.7 high
- Remotely exploitable without logging in
- On your watchlist: PyPI
Affected packages
| Package | Ecosystem | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pillow | pip | >= 5.3.0, < 13.0.0 | 13.0.0 |
References
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-q45j-58j2-45rg
- https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/security/advisories/GHSA-q45j-58j2-45rg
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-112897
- https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/commit/1d4773e6cea0c4a2814e6d4cdc099bbcf56da6ce
- https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/releases/tag/13.0.0
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-q45j-58j2-45rg
Original description
Pillow is a Python imaging library. From 5.3.0 until 13.0.0, Pillow can return uninitialized memory as pixels when libtiff performs a short decode of JPEG-compressed or Group 4 fax TIFF data. The _decodeStrip and _decodeTile buffers can be larger than the bytes written by libtiff, but Pillow converts the expected rows without clearing the unwritten tail. The tile path is affected from 5.3.0 and the strip path from 6.0.0. An attacker can supply a crafted TIFF to an application that loads and returns or re-encodes its pixels. This can disclose stale heap contents without memory corruption or a process crash. This issue is fixed in version 13.0.0.
Last activity 19 Oct 2026. Patch Forecast updates every hour.