Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-44821

Lcdf Gifsicle ≤ 1.94

Public PoC
Published
09 October 2023
Modified
04 November 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0031 24th percentile
Risk Priority 42 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2023-44821 is a medium-severity Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime (CWE-401) vulnerability in Lcdf Gifsicle. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); ranked at the 24th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Gifsicle through 1.94, if deployed in a way that allows untrusted input to affect Gif_Realloc calls, might allow a denial of service (memory consumption). NOTE: this has been disputed by multiple parties because the Gifsicle code is not commonly used…

more

for unattended operation in which new input arrives for a long-running process, does not ship with functionality to link it into another application as a library, and does not have realistic use cases in which an adversary controls the entire command line.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
T1499.003 Application Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may target resource intensive features of applications to cause a denial of service (DoS), denying availability to those applications.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-46009Same product: Lcdf Gifsicle
CVE-2023-36193Same product: Lcdf Gifsicle
CVE-2026-46102Shared CWE-401
CVE-2026-53227Shared CWE-401
CVE-2025-30658Shared CWE-401
CVE-2025-37874Shared CWE-401
CVE-2025-46686Shared CWE-401
CVE-2023-44193Shared CWE-401
CVE-2023-22395Shared CWE-401
CVE-2023-2618Shared CWE-401

Affected Assets

lcdf
gifsicle
≤ 1.94

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly enforce proper memory allocation/deallocation via coding standards, reviews, and tooling.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

finds

Security testing in development can detect unreleased memory, providing partial coverage of the weakness.

prevents

Secure development life cycle mandates memory-management practices that reduce missing-release defects.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify explicit memory-release rules, partially mitigating the weakness.

prevents

Secure system architecture and engineering principles include resource-management guidelines that address memory leaks.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly require proper allocation/deallocation, covering most of this weakness.

finds

Capacity management may detect memory exhaustion symptoms but does not prevent the coding flaw.

References