CVE-2019-16138 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Use After Free vulnerability in image. A fix is available for image — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Use after free in image
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2019-16138 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,738 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
imageReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Affected versions of this crate would call Vec::set_len on an uninitialized vector with user-provided type parameter, in an interface of the HDR image format decoder. They would then also call other code that could panic before initializing all instances.
This could run Drop implementations on uninitialized types, equivalent to use-after-free, and allow an attacker arbitrary code execution.
Two different fixes were applied. It is possible to conserve the interface by ensuring proper initialization before calling Vec::set_len. Drop is no longer called in case of panic, though.
Starting from version 0.22, a breaking change to the interface requires callers to pre-allocate the output buffer and pass a mutable slice instead, avoiding all unsafe code.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | image | ≥ 0.10.2&&< 0.21.3 | 0.21.3cargo update -p image --precise 0.21.3 |
Affected Products
imageimage-rsDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for image, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update image to 0.21.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2019-16138 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop feeding it untrusted input: reject or quarantine files and payloads from unverified sources until you can upgrade, restrict accepted formats to the ones you actually need, and run the parsing or decoding step in a least-privileged sandbox or short-lived worker so a crash or corrupted read cannot reach the rest of the process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2019-16138 in your dependencies?
Find it across crates.io, including transitive dependencies.