CVE-2022-24614 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) CWE-770 vulnerability in com.drewnoakes:metadata-extractor. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for com.drewnoakes:metadata-extractor — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in metadata-extractor
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2022-24614 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
com.drewnoakes:metadata-extractorReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
When reading a specially crafted JPEG file, metadata-extractor up to 2.16.0 can be made to allocate large amounts of memory that finally leads to an out-of-memory error even for very small inputs. This could be used to mount a denial of service attack against services that use metadata-extractor library.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | com.drewnoakes:metadata-extractor | all versions | 2.18.0com.drewnoakes:metadata-extractor:2.18.0 |
Affected Products
metadata-extractormetadata-extractor_projectResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for com.drewnoakes:metadata-extractor, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update com.drewnoakes:metadata-extractor to 2.18.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-24614 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Fuse 7.11 | metadata-extractor | RHSA-2022:5532 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-24614 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.