CVE-2026-28691
Published: 10 March 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-28691 is a high-severity Unchecked Return Value (CWE-252) vulnerability in Imagemagick Imagemagick. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked at the 19.9th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-2 (Flaw Remediation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2026-28691 is an uninitialized pointer dereference vulnerability in the JBIG decoder of ImageMagick, stemming from a missing check. ImageMagick is free and open-source software for editing and manipulating digital images. The issue affects versions prior to 7.1.2-16 and 6.9.13-41 and is associated with CWE-252 (Unchecked Return Value) and CWE-824 (Access of Uninitialized Pointer).
With a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H), the vulnerability can be exploited remotely by unauthenticated attackers with low complexity and no user interaction required. Attackers can supply a specially crafted JBIG image to affected ImageMagick instances, triggering the uninitialized pointer dereference and causing high-impact denial of service, such as application crashes.
The vulnerability is addressed in ImageMagick versions 7.1.2-16 and 6.9.13-41. Additional details on the issue and remediation are available in the GitHub security advisory at https://github.com/ImageMagick/ImageMagick/security/advisories/GHSA-wj8w-pjxf-9g4f.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-10385
Vulnerability details
ImageMagick is free and open-source software used for editing and manipulating digital images. Prior to versions 7.1.2-16 and 6.9.13-41, an uninitialized pointer dereference vulnerability exists in the JBIG decoder due to a missing check. This vulnerability is fixed in 7.1.2-16…
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and 6.9.13-41.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Uninitialized pointer dereference triggered by crafted JBIG input directly enables remote application crash/DoS with no auth or interaction, mapping to T1499.004 (Application or System Exploitation).
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Requires timely patching of ImageMagick to fixed versions 7.1.2-16 or 6.9.13-41, directly remediating the uninitialized pointer dereference in the JBIG decoder.
Mandates secure error handling for common conditions like unchecked return values (CWE-252), addressing the missing check that triggers the pointer dereference.
Enforces validation of image inputs at entry points to block specially crafted JBIG files from reaching the vulnerable decoder.