Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
This flaw can let a crafted image make ImageMagick consume memory until the process or host is degraded. The business risk is denial of service, especially for websites, document pipelines, or back-office systems that process uploaded or emailed images.
Executive priority
Treat as a service-availability risk. Prioritize internet-facing upload paths and automated file-processing workflows before internal-only image tooling.
Technical view
CVE-2017-14684 is reported in ImageMagick 7.0.7-4 Q16. The issue is a memory leak in ReadVIPSImage in coders/vips.c, with memory consumption occurring through ResizeMagickMemory in MagickCore/memory.c when parsing a crafted file.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely where ImageMagick processes untrusted files, particularly VIPS-related image inputs. The bundle does not provide normalized CPEs, package ranges, or all affected downstream builds.
Exploitation context
The provided sources describe attacker-supplied crafted files causing denial of service through memory consumption. CISA KEV is false, and the bundle provides no evidence of active exploitation.
Researcher notes
Evidence is limited to the CVE description, upstream issue reference, and Ubuntu advisory reference. No CVSS, CWE, complete affected matrix, or confirmed exploit activity is provided in the bundle.
Mitigation direction
- Check ImageMagick issue #770 for upstream guidance and affected context.
- Review Ubuntu USN-3681-1 for applicable distribution package updates.
- Update ImageMagick through trusted vendor or OS package channels.
- Limit memory and process resources for image-conversion services.
- Restrict unauthenticated or untrusted image processing where feasible.
Validation and detection
- Inventory systems running ImageMagick, especially version 7.0.7-4 Q16.
- Identify applications that process user-supplied images or attachments.
- Confirm whether VIPS image decoding is enabled or reachable.
- Check vendor package status against USN-3681-1 and upstream guidance.
- Monitor image-processing workers for abnormal memory growth or restarts.
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
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CVE-2017-14684 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
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
- USN-3681-1CVE reference · vendor-advisory, x_refsource_UBUNTU
- https://github.com/ImageMagick/ImageMagick/issues/770CVE 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.