What is CVE-2011-2690?

CVE-2011-2690 is a high-severity vulnerability in Libpng, classified under Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input (Classic Buffer Overflow). CVSS score: 8.8/10. Published 2011-07-17.

How severe is CVE-2011-2690?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.8 out of 10.

Buffer overflow in Libpng

CVE-2011-2690

Buffer overflow in libpng 1.0.x before 1.0.55, 1.2.x before 1.2.45, 1.4.x before 1.4.8, and 1.5.x before 1.5.4, when used by an application that calls the png_rgb_to_gray function but not the png_set_expand function, allows remote attackers to overwrite memory with an arbitrary amount of data, and possibly have unspecified other impact, via a crafted PNG image.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2011-07-17 · last modified 2026-06-16.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 8.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.033 (88.1th percentile), scored 2026-09-30.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 88th percentile — 88.1% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.033 · newest: 0.033 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Libpng
Canonical Ubuntu Linux — versions 8.04, 10.04, 10.10
Debian Linux — versions 5.0, 6.0
Fedoraproject Fedora — versions 14

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-120 — Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input (Classic Buffer Overflow)

References

secunia.com/advisories/49660 (Broken Link, third-party-advisory)
www.securityfocus.com/bid/48660 (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry)
secunia.com/advisories/45046 (Broken Link, third-party-advisory)
www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-1175-1 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
www.mandriva.com/security/advisories (vendor-advisory, Broken Link)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-201206-15.xml (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
secunia.com/advisories/45461 (Broken Link, third-party-advisory)
www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html (Product, Vendor Advisory)
lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/063118.html (vendor-advisory, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2287 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2011-2690?: CVE-2011-2690 is a high-severity vulnerability in Libpng, classified under Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input (Classic Buffer Overflow). CVSS score: 8.8/10. Published 2011-07-17.
How severe is CVE-2011-2690?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.8 out of 10.