Medium severity · published Oct 21, 2026
CVE-2026-96638
Pillow: BMP RLE decoder memory-amplification DoS via unbounded delta escape / absolute mode
New
6.5
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Pillow is a Python imaging library. From 9.1.0 until 13.0.0, BmpRleDecoder.decode() in src/PIL/BmpImagePlugin.py permits crafted RLE BMP delta escapes and absolute-mode runs to append beyond the remaining dest_length without a per-branch cap. A delta can add roughly 255 image rows in one iteration, so a kilobyte-sized file with a large but permitted width can expand the data bytearray to 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
>= 9.1.0, < 13.0.0 · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-96638
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-96638
Patch
https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/commit/e7794835e323ff2691d9b3a974cade1a44301b9a
Issue Tracking
https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/pull/10015
Release Notes
https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/releases/tag/13.0.0
Vendor Advisory
https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/security/advisories/GHSA-24rc-8hj2-v98c
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