CVE-2026-46599 — image
HIGHCVE-2026-46599 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-770 vulnerability in golang.org/x/image. A fix is available for golang.org/x/image — see the affected versions and patch details below.
golang.org/x/image/tiff has excessive resource consumption in PackBits decompression
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-2026-46599.
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-2026-46599 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 377,166 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
golang.org/x/imageReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
The TIFF decoder does not place a limit on the size of PackBits-compressed data. A maliciously-crafted image can exploit this to cause a small image (both in terms of pixel width/height and encoded size) to make the decoder decode large amounts of compressed data.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | golang.org/x/image | all versions | 0.41.0go get golang.org/x/image@v0.41.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for golang.org/x/image, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update golang.org/x/image to 0.41.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-46599 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-2026-46599 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-46599. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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 Hat rates this issue as Moderate with RH CVSS 6.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H). A flaw was found in golang.org/x/image/tiff where the TIFF decoder does not limit the size of PackBits-compressed data. A maliciously crafted TIFF image with small declared dimensions can cause the decoder to process…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Cryostat 4 on RHEL 9 | cryostat/cryostat-storage-rhel9:4.2.0-19 | RHSA-2026:48151 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-46599 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-46599 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.