Medium severity · published Apr 6, 2026
CVE-2026-35444
SDL_image has a heap buffer overflow READ via unchecked colormap index in XCF loader
6.1
CVSS
0.3%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
SDL_image is a library to load images of various formats as SDL surfaces. In do_layer_surface() in src/IMG_xcf.c, pixel index values from decoded XCF tile data are used directly as colormap indices without validating them against the colormap size (cm_num). A crafted .xcf file with a small colormap and out-of-range pixel indices causes heap out-of-bounds reads of up to 762 bytes past the colormap allocation. Both IMAGE_INDEXED code paths are affected (bpp=1 and bpp=2). The leaked heap bytes are written into the output surface pixel data, making them potentially observable in the rendered image. This vulnerability is fixed with commit 996bf12888925932daace576e09c3053410896f8.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:L
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
Low
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.3% · higher than 18% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
SD
SDL_image · libsdl-org
< 996bf12888925932daace576e09c3053410896f8 · source: vendor
SI
Sdl Image · Libsdl
before 2026-04-02 · source: NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-35444
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-35444
Patch
https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL_image/security/advisories/GHSA-gq8w-x74c-h6p7
More from SDL_image
6.1
CVE-2026-117557
SDL_image through 3.4.8 and 2.8.12 Stack Out-of-Bounds Read in ILBM Loader
