CVE-2026-22770
Imagemagick ≤ 7.1.2-13
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2026-22770 is a medium-severity Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference (CWE-763) vulnerability in Imagemagick Imagemagick. Its CVSS base score is 6.5 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 27th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
CVE-2026-22770 is a memory safety vulnerability in ImageMagick, a free and open-source software suite for editing and manipulating digital images. The issue affects versions prior to 7.1.2-13 and resides in the BilateralBlurImage method, which allocates a set of double buffers via AcquireBilateralTLS. In vulnerable versions, the last element in this set is not properly initialized, leading to the release of an invalid pointer in DestroyBilateralTLS when memory allocation fails. The vulnerability is rated with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 6.5 (AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H) and is associated with CWE-763 (Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference). It was published on 2026-01-20.
An unauthenticated attacker can exploit this vulnerability over the network without user interaction, though it requires high attack complexity. Successful exploitation results in high availability impact, such as denial-of-service via application crashes from invalid memory handling, and low integrity impact, potentially allowing limited data tampering without confidentiality loss or scope change.
ImageMagick's security advisory (GHSA-39h3-g67r-7g3c) and the patching commit (3e0330721020e0c5bb52e4b77c347527dd71658e) confirm that version 7.1.2-13 addresses the issue by properly initializing the buffer elements in AcquireBilateralTLS, preventing the invalid pointer release. Security practitioners should update to 7.1.2-13 or later to mitigate the vulnerability.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-3401
Vulnerability Data
ImageMagick is free and open-source software used for editing and manipulating digital images. The BilateralBlurImage method will allocate a set of double buffers inside AcquireBilateralTLS. But, in versions prior to 7.1.2-13, the last element in the set is not properly…
more
initialized. This will result in a release of an invalid pointer inside DestroyBilateralTLS when the memory allocation fails. Version 7.1.2-13 contains a patch for the issue.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation directly exercises deallocation paths and can find incorrect release calls or mismatched alloc/free pairs.
Documented development standards and tools can mandate safe memory-management idioms and static checks that avoid invalid releases.
An SDLC that incorporates security can embed memory-safety requirements, reducing the chance such coding errors are introduced.
Engineering principles require correct resource management and memory-release patterns that stop invalid pointer releases from being coded.
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.
Secure SDLC practices directly prevent invalid pointer release errors during development.
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.
Security testing can detect invalid pointer releases before release.
Secure SDLC practices can mandate proper memory-management APIs and reviews that catch incorrect deallocation.
Application security requirements can specify correct use of release functions and pointer validation.
Secure architecture principles include safe memory handling and resource-lifetime rules.
Secure coding standards directly prohibit mismatched or incorrect pointer-release calls.