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CVE-2026-33018

libsixel: Use-After-Free in load_gif()

Published
Last modified
published
Not listed in CISA KEV
Fix
Fixed in 1.8.7-rc1
None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
  • Exploitation: poc
  • Automatable: no
  • Technical impact: total

Summary

libsixel is a SIXEL encoder/decoder implementation derived from kmiya's sixel. Versions 1.8.7 and prior contain a Use-After-Free vulnerability via the load_gif() function in fromgif.c, where a single sixel_frame_t object is reused across all frames of an animated GIF and gif_init_frame() unconditionally frees and reallocates frame->pixels between frames without consulting the object's reference count. Because the public API explicitly provides sixel_frame_ref() to retain a frame and sixel_frame_get_pixels() to access the raw pixel buffer, a callback following this documented usage pattern will hold a dangling pointer after the second frame is decoded, resulting in a heap use-after-free confirmed by ASAN. Any application using sixel_helper_load_image_file() with a multi-frame callback to process user-supplied animated GIFs is affected, with a reliable crash as the minimum impact and potential for code execution. This issue has been fixed in version 1.8.7-r1.

Timeline

  1. CVE published2 days
  2. CISA SSVC assessment

    Exploitation: poc · Automatable: no · Technical impact: total

  3. Record last updated

Affected versions

  • saitoha libsixel

    fixed in 1.8.7-rc1

References 2

GitHub · saitoha/libsixel