CVE-2024-32871 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-770 vulnerability in pimcore/pimcore. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for pimcore/pimcore — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Pimcore Vulnerable to Flooding Server with Thumbnail files
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2024-32871.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-32871 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,636 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
pimcore/pimcoreReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Packagist packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Details
1. All Imagick supported Fileformats are served without filtering
The Thumbnail endpoint does not check against any filters what file formats should be served. We can transcode the image in all formats imagemagick supports. With that we can create Files that are much larger in filesize than the original. For example we can create a .txt file for all thumbnails, and we get the text representation of the image.
We can demonstrate that with the pimcore demo:
This Thumbnail is found on the Frontend: https://demo.pimcore.fun/Sample%20Content/Background%20Images/317/image-thumb__317__standardTeaser/11.8c64bd89.avif (12kb Filesize)
We can generate a text representation by simply changing the file extension: https://demo.pimcore.fun/Sample%20Content/Background%20Images/317/image-thumb__317__standardTeaser/11.8c64bd89.txt (4.59mb Filesize)
Other (large) fileformats we tested: ftxt, dip, bmp, bmp3, bmp2, farbfeld, cmyk, cmyka, ycbcr, ycbcra and many more (just check imagemagick supported formats)
With that we can fill the available space of a server really easy.
With formats like yaml or json we can also expose exif data of the original image file - could be a concern with gps data in user uploaded images.
TLDR
- we can generate all imagemagick supported formats with all thumbnail configs
- all configs were the format is set to "auto (Web-optimized)" are vulnerable
- private (exif) data can be exposed.
- We can flood the the server with a bunch of files that are a multiple magnitudes of the original thumbnail size (see txt example), for all thumbnail configs, with every image that we find (scriptable)
Proposed Solution
Implement a list of allowed formats that the developer can modify if needed, if a file is requested in another format than listed, pimcore should return either "/bundles/pimcoreadmin/img/filetype-not-supported.svg" or a 404.
pimcore:
thumbnails:
allowed_formats: ['jpg', 'png', 'avif', 'webp', 'gif']
For non-maintained Pimcore versions (<11), the webserver config could be used to only serve files that should be allowed.
2. Non Web optimized file formats (ORIGINAL, JPG, PNG) creates duplicated files on Server
With Thumbnail config that are configured to serve non web optimized file formats (such as ORIGINAL, jpg, png, print, etc) we can create files with arbitrary file formats that are saved to disk.
For example, the thumbnail configuration "print_backgroundimage" (in the pimcore demo) can be used to create files such as:
https://demo.pimcore.fun/Car%20Images/jaguar/3/image-thumb__3__print_backgroundimage/auto-3095119.aaa https://demo.pimcore.fun/Car%20Images/jaguar/3/image-thumb__3__print_backgroundimage/auto-3095119.aab https://demo.pimcore.fun/Car%20Images/jaguar/3/image-thumb__3__print_backgroundimage/auto-3095119.aac
Each request creates a new copy of the original (jpg) thumbnail file. The server can be flooded with a bunch of files.
Code for this mechanism is here: https://github.com/pimcore/pimcore/blob/11.x/models/Asset/Service.php#L621-L623
Proposed Solution
Use same filtered list from "All Imagick supported Fileformats are served without filtering" and do not copy the arbitrary file to disk, just serve the original image file under the "new" name.
3. Scaling Factor is not limited and can be modified via url
We can scale each thumbnail to an arbitrary factor with @<float>x added to the request url.
For example:
https://demo.pimcore.fun/Sample%20Content/Background%20Images/317/image-thumb__317__standardTeaser/[email protected] https://demo.pimcore.fun/Sample%20Content/Background%20Images/317/image-thumb__317__standardTeaser/[email protected] https://demo.pimcore.fun/Sample%20Content/Background%20Images/317/image-thumb__317__standardTeaser/[email protected] https://demo.pimcore.fun/Sample%20Content/Background%20Images/317/image-thumb__317__standardTeaser/[email protected]
If the thumbnail config allows "forced" resizing, we could also do something like:
Each request will create a new file, flooding the server with more files. If the factor is big enough, we can also max out the CPU with a single request for quite some time (only really a problem with "forced")
In combination with the first vulnerability we can also generate (large) text files for scaled images:
https://demo.pimcore.fun/Sample%20Content/Background%20Images/317/image-thumb__317__standardTeaser/[email protected] (6.6 mb filesize)
Proposed solution
Limit scale factors with an allowlist:
pimcore:
thumbnails:
allowed_scale_factors: [1.25, 1.5, 2, 4]
Impact
All Pimcore Instances are affected, as far as we can see, also all versions
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | pimcore/pimcore | ≥ 11.0.0&&< 11.2.4 | 11.2.4composer require pimcore/pimcore:^11.2.4 |
Research 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 pimcore/pimcore, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update pimcore/pimcore to 11.2.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-32871 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2024-32871 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-32871. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-32871 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-32871 across Packagist dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.