How severe is CVE-2025-26623?

No CVSS score has been assigned to CVE-2025-26623 yet. Review the advisory details and affected package list to assess your exposure.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2025-26623?

CVE-2025-26623 affects the following packages: exiv2 (PyPI). Ecosystems affected: PyPI.

How do I fix CVE-2025-26623?

Update exiv2 to 0.28.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-26623 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2025-26623 in my PyPI dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for exiv2, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

How do I mitigate CVE-2025-26623 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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.

Is CVE-2025-26623 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2025-26623 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2025-26623?

CVE-2025-26623 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.9%, placing it in the 60th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2025-26623?

CVE-2025-26623 is classified as Use After Free (CWE-416). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

When was CVE-2025-26623 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2025-26623 was published on February 18, 2025 and was last updated on October 21, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

CVE-2025-26623: exiv2 — Fixed in 0.28.5

Exploitation Status

Proof-of-concept exploit code exists

CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2025-26623.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.9%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk0.00%

Lower risk than most CVEs60th percentile — riskier than 60% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected

🐍exiv2

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

Exiv2 is a C++ library and a command-line utility to read, write, delete and modify Exif, IPTC, XMP and ICC image metadata. A heap buffer overflow was found in Exiv2 versions v0.28.0 to v0.28.4. Versions prior to v0.28.0, such as v0.27.7, are not affected. Exiv2 is a command-line utility and C++ library for reading, writing, deleting, and modifying the metadata of image files. The heap overflow is triggered when Exiv2 is used to write metadata into a crafted image file. An attacker could potentially exploit the vulnerability to gain code execution, if they can trick the victim into running Exiv2 on a crafted image file. Note that this bug is only triggered when writing the metadata, which is a less frequently used Exiv2 operation than reading the metadata. For example, to trigger the bug in the Exiv2 command-line application, you need to add an extra command-line argument such as fixiso. The bug is fixed in version v0.28.5. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🐍PyPI	`exiv2`	≥ 0.28.0&&< 0.28.5	0.28.5`pip install --upgrade 'exiv2==0.28.5'`

Affected Products

1 product · 1 configurations

Application

exiv2exiv2

≥ 0.28.0 && < 0.28.5

range

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for exiv2, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update exiv2 to 0.28.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-26623 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.

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.

Red HatModerate

Product	Fixed in	Advisory
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10	`exiv2-0:0.28.3-3.el10_0.2`	RHSA-2025:7457

Frequently Asked Questions

Exiv2 is a C++ library and a command-line utility to read, write, delete and modify Exif, IPTC, XMP and ICC image metadata. A heap buffer overflow was found in Exiv2 versions v0.28.0 to v0.28.4. Versions prior to v0.28.0, such as v0.27.7, are **not** affected. Exiv2 is a command-line utility and C++ library for reading, writing, deleting, and modifying the metadata of image files. The heap overflow is triggered when Exiv2 is used to write metadata into a crafted image file. An attacker could potentially exploit the vulnerability to gain code execution, if they can trick the victim into running

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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CVE-2025-26623 — exiv2