GHSA-crmj-qh74-2r36 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in exiv2. A fix is available for exiv2 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Exiv2 has a denial of service due to unbounded recursion in QuickTimeVideo::multipleEntriesDecoder
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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 GHSA-crmj-qh74-2r36.
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
GHSA-crmj-qh74-2r36 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
exiv2Real-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
Impact
A denial-of-service was found in Exiv2 version v0.28.1: an unbounded recursion can cause Exiv2 to crash by exhausting the stack. The vulnerable function, QuickTimeVideo::multipleEntriesDecoder, was new in v0.28.0 (see https://github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/pull/2337), so Exiv2 versions before v0.28 are not affected. Exiv2 is a command-line utility and C++ library for reading, writing, deleting, and modifying the metadata of image files. The denial-of-service is triggered when Exiv2 is used to read the metadata of a crafted video file.
Patches
The bug is fixed in version v0.28.2.
For more information
Please see our security policy for information about Exiv2 security.
Credit
This bug was found by OSS-Fuzz.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | exiv2 | ≥ 0.16.0&&< 0.16.1 | 0.16.1pip install --upgrade 'exiv2==0.16.1' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
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 0.16.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-crmj-qh74-2r36 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 GHSA-crmj-qh74-2r36 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-crmj-qh74-2r36. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-crmj-qh74-2r36 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-crmj-qh74-2r36 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.