Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
CVE-2017-11166 is a memory exhaustion risk in ImageMagick when reading specially crafted XWD image files. If a system processes untrusted images with the affected ImageMagick code, an attacker could cause excessive memory use and disrupt availability.
Executive priority
Prioritize remediation where ImageMagick processes untrusted uploads or external feeds. Internal-only, trusted image workflows are lower urgency but should still be upgraded through normal maintenance.
Technical view
The issue is in ReadXWDImage in coders/xwd.c in ImageMagick 7.0.5-6. A crafted XWD header length field for color-map entries can trigger a memory leak and memory exhaustion. The supplied sources do not provide CVSS, CWE, patch details, or exploit evidence.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely in image-processing services, upload pipelines, or automation that accept XWD files or untrusted image content processed by ImageMagick 7.0.5-6.
Exploitation context
The source bundle does not show active exploitation, KEV listing, or public weaponization. The plausible impact is denial of service through memory exhaustion, not code execution based on the provided evidence.
Researcher notes
Evidence is limited to the CVE description and the referenced ImageMagick issue. Treat affected-version and fix determination as a vendor-release-note validation task before declaring environments remediated.
Mitigation direction
- Check ImageMagick vendor guidance and release notes for the fix status.
- Upgrade affected ImageMagick deployments if vendor guidance identifies a fixed version.
- Restrict or reject XWD uploads where that format is not business-required.
- Run image processing with memory limits and isolation controls.
- Monitor image-processing workers for abnormal memory growth or restarts.
Validation and detection
- Inventory services and jobs that invoke ImageMagick on uploaded or external images.
- Confirm whether deployed ImageMagick versions include 7.0.5-6.
- Review application paths that permit XWD files or automatic format detection.
- Check logs and metrics for memory exhaustion during image processing.
- Verify compensating limits for memory, worker lifetime, and upload size.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
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CVE-2017-11166 mapping review
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Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Unknown
- CVSS
- Not scored
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS and timeline data
No CVSS vectors or timeline events were available in the normalized CVE source material.
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://github.com/ImageMagick/ImageMagick/issues/471CVE reference · x_refsource_CONFIRM
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.