ExifReader is vulnerable to denial of service via crafted ICC `mluc` tag
### Impact When parsing an image with an embedded ICC profile that contains a crafted `multiLocalizedUnicodeType` (`mluc`) tag, ExifReader can be made to allocate memory proportional to attacker-controlled fields in the tag rather than to the actual size of the input. Processing such an image causes excessive memory consumption and can terminate the host process (out-of-memory). Any application that calls `ExifReader.load()` on untrusted images, for example, user uploads in a web service, is affected. ICC profiles are carried in JPEG, TIFF, PNG, HEIC, AVIF, JPEG XL, and WebP, so the issue is reachable from any of those formats. ### Patches Fixed in `exifreader@4.39.0`. Upgrade with: npm install exifreader@latest Bower users consume the bundled `dist/` files from this repository, and the same fix is committed there. ### Workarounds If upgrading is not immediately possible, configure a [custom build](https://github.com/mattiasw/ExifReader#configure-a-custom-build) that excludes the `icc` module so that ICC parsing (and therefore this code path) is skipped entirely. ### Resources - Patch: https://github.com/mattiasw/ExifReader/commit/c9d88b67e127b2dcc7b46e328df468257fb2dc30
describes (1)
Related CVEs.
| ID | severity | exploitable | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2026-8813US | — | — | ||
This affects versions of the package exifreader before 4.39.0. A crafted image containing an ICC mluc tag can set an attacker-controlled record count together with a zero record si… | ||||
references
External citations — patches, advisories, analysis.
- https://github.com/mattiasw/ExifReaderPACKAGE
- https://github.com/mattiasw/ExifReader/commit/c9d88b67e127b2dcc7b46e328df468257fb2dc30WEB
- https://github.com/mattiasw/ExifReader/security/advisories/GHSA-h64w-w9pr-82m4WEB
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-8813ADVISORY
- https://security.snyk.io/vuln/SNYK-JS-EXIFREADER-16689335WEB
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