CVE-2026-54920 OpenEXR: Integer overflow and uninitialized pointer cause invalid delete in OpenEXRUtil image resize
A crafted HTJ2K-compressed EXR file causes a process abort in applications using OpenEXR, leading to denial of service.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-54920?
CVE-2026-54920 is a denial of service vulnerability in AcademySoftwareFoundation openexr, published on 25 Aug 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
OpenEXR is the reference implementation and specification for the EXR image format, widely used in the motion picture industry. In versions 3.4.0 through 3.4.12, a reachable assertion failure in the HTJ2K decode path allows a crafted HTJ2K-compressed EXR file to cause an unconditional process abort in any application that calls exr_start_read() on untrusted input, resulting in denial of service. The crash is triggered by a QCD marker whose lower five bits are zero, which OpenEXR passes into the vendored OpenJPH library while constructing the codestream and evaluating its quantization delta parameters. OpenJPH uses an assertion rather than a recoverable error to validate those bits, so any invalid value calls abort() directly and cannot be intercepted by surrounding error handling, a problem compounded by OpenEXR wrapping only its internal HT header parser in error handling while leaving the later codestream read and construction calls unprotected. This issue has been resolved in version 3.4.13.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-54920?
Linux distribution packages (1)
openexr SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server LTSS Extended Security 12 SP5 | All versions | 2.1.0-6.48.1 |
How do I fix CVE-2026-54920?
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-2026-54920 being exploited?
It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2026-54920 exists.
Sources
Also known as AZL-97620, BELL-CVE-2026-54920, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-54920, ECHO-d06f-415d-1da1, GHSA-fp75-87pr-8329, MINI-vgv8-7f3r-w66v and 2 more.