# CVE-2023-44821: Denial of service in n/a

> Untrusted input affecting memory reallocation in Gifsicle may cause denial of service via memory consumption, though exploitation is disputed.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 9 Oct 2023
- **Updated:** 4 Nov 2025
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2023-44821, GHSA-vqf3-8wjf-vm68

## What is CVE-2023-44821?

CVE-2023-44821 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 9 Oct 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Gifsicle through 1.94, if deployed in a way that allows untrusted input to affect Gif_Realloc calls, might allow a denial of service (memory consumption). NOTE: this has been disputed by multiple parties because the Gifsicle code is not commonly used for unattended operation in which new input arrives for a long-running process, does not ship with functionality to link it into another application as a library, and does not have realistic use cases in which an adversary controls the entire command line.

Weakness: CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-44821?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Lcdf Gifsicle.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-44821?

No fix has been published for CVE-2023-44821 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2023-44821 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-44821 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2023-46009](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-46009/): Denial of service in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2023-36193](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-36193/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2017-18120](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-18120/): Use after free in n/a (high 7.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-44821 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-44821 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 9 Oct 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-44821 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: n/a. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-44821/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-44821/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-44821
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-44821
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-44821

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-44821/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.