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CVE-2008-3964: libpng may crash when processing malicious PNG images

CVE-2008-3964 · published 18 years ago

Summary

Older versions of the libpng library can mishandle specially crafted PNG files, causing the program to stop working or behave unpredictably. This affects any application that uses libpng versions prior to the latest releases. Upgrade libpng to the newest version or apply any available patches to prevent the issue.

What to do

Update libpng libpng to version 1.2.32 or later.

Affected software

Vendor	Product	Affected versions
libpng	libpng	< 1.2.32 1.4.0 `cpe:2.3:a:libpng:libpng::::::::`

Original advisory text

Multiple off-by-one errors in libpng before 1.2.32beta01, and 1.4 before 1.4.0beta34, allow context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) or have unspecified other impact via a PNG image with crafted zTXt chunks, related to (1) the png_push_read_zTXt function in pngread.c, and possibly related to (2) pngtest.c.

References

http://secunia.com/advisories/31781 Third Party Advisory
http://secunia.com/advisories/33137 Third Party Advisory
http://secunia.com/advisories/35302 Third Party Advisory
http://secunia.com/advisories/35386 Third Party Advisory
http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200812-15.xml Third Party Advisory
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=e56ccc8f0809180317u6a53... Third Party Advisory
http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?group_id=5624&release_id=624517 Product Third Party Advisory
http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=624518 Broken Link Patch
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2095669&group_id=5624&a... Exploit Third Party Advisory
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-66-259989-1 Broken Link
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-77-1020521.1-1 Broken Link
http://support.avaya.com/elmodocs2/security/ASA-2009-208.htm Third Party Advisory
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/889484 Third Party Advisory US Government Resource
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2009:051 Broken Link
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2008/09/09/3 Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2008/09/09/8 Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/31049 Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2008/2512 Permissions Required
http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2009/1462 Permissions Required
http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2009/1560 Permissions Required
https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/44928 Third Party Advisory VDB Entry

Fix within

Internet-facing 60 days

Internal At next upgrade

Not known to be exploited
Needs hands-on effort to exploit (estimated)
Gives an attacker partial control (estimated)

Severity

4.3 Medium

Exploitation

3% chance of attack within 30 days

Type

CWE-193Off-by-one Error

Timeline

Published11 Sep 2008

Updated4 Nov 2026

First seen29 Sep 2026

Sources

CVE-2008-3964 · NVD

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