CVE-2021-37623 Denial of service due to infinite loop in JpegBase::printStructure (#2)
An attacker can cause a denial of service via an infinite loop when a user deletes IPTC data from a crafted image using Exiv2.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- A user has to click or open something
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2021-37623?
CVE-2021-37623 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Exiv2 Exiv2, published on 9 Aug 2021. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Official description
Exiv2 is a command-line utility and C++ library for reading, writing, deleting, and modifying the metadata of image files. An infinite loop was found in Exiv2 versions v0.27.4 and earlier. The infinite loop is triggered when Exiv2 is used to modify the metadata of a crafted image file. An attacker could potentially exploit the vulnerability to cause a denial of service, if they can trick the victim into running Exiv2 on a crafted image file. Note that this bug is only triggered when deleting the IPTC data, which is a less frequently used Exiv2 operation that requires an extra command line option (`-d I rm`). The bug is fixed in version v0.27.5.
Weakness: CWE-835
Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-37623?
It affects 2 products.
Products include Exiv2 Exiv2, Fedoraproject Fedora.
How do I fix CVE-2021-37623?
Upgrade to a fixed version.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2021-37623 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-37623 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Exiv2 Exiv2
Sources
Also known as AZL-7225, CLEANSTART-2024-IG77223, DEBIAN-CVE-2021-37623, GHSA-mvc4-g5pv-4qqq, JLSEC-2026-1313, UBUNTU-CVE-2021-37623.