Medium severity · published Oct 21, 2026
CVE-2026-96636
Pillow: Decompression-bomb protection bypass via multi-frame seek() in MPO and DCX (MpoImageFile.seek / DcxImageFile.seek)
New
6.5
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Pillow is a Python imaging library. Prior to 13.0.0, MpoImageFile.seek() and DcxImageFile.seek() reparse later MPO or DCX frames and replace self._size without rerunning Image._decompression_bomb_check(). A crafted multi-frame image can use a tiny first frame to pass Image.open() and then declare an over-limit later frame. Normal frame iteration through seek(), load(), or ImageSequence.Iterator can decode that frame and commit hundreds of megabytes or more, causing memory-exhaustion denial of service. This issue is fixed in version 13.0.0.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 28% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
PI
Pillow · python-pillow
< 13.0.0 · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-96636
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-96636
Patch
https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/commit/f1acfc54c53502948d0d14121872061df931db48
Issue Tracking
https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/pull/10011
Release Notes
https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/releases/tag/13.0.0
Vendor Advisory
https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/security/advisories/GHSA-p8hx-v2p6-rp84
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