What is CVE-2016-9556?

CVE-2016-9556 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Imagemagick, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2017-03-23.

How severe is CVE-2016-9556?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.

Is CVE-2016-9556 known to be exploited?

1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Buffer overflow in Imagemagick

CVE-2016-9556

The IsPixelGray function in MagickCore/pixel-accessor.h in ImageMagick 7.0.3-8 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds heap read) via a crafted image file.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2017-03-23 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.023 (82.4th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 82nd percentile — 82.4% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.023 · newest: 0.023 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Imagemagick — versions 7.0.3-8
openSUSE Project Leap — versions 42.1
Debian Linux — versions 8.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-119 — Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

Public proof-of-concept exploits

mrash/afl-cve

References

www.securityfocus.com/bid/94492 (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry)
github.com/ImageMagick/ImageMagick/commit/ce98a7acbcfca7f0a178f4b1e7b957e419e0c… (Patch, Issue Tracking, Vendor Advisory)
blogs.gentoo.org/ago/2016/11/19/imagemagick-heap-based-buffer-overflow-in-ispix… (Third Party Advisory)
lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-updates/2016-12/msg00040.html (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/11/23/1 (mailing-list, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/12/02/12 (mailing-list, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/12/01/4 (mailing-list, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi (Third Party Advisory, Issue Tracking)
www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3726 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2016-9556?: CVE-2016-9556 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Imagemagick, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2017-03-23.
How severe is CVE-2016-9556?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.
Is CVE-2016-9556 known to be exploited?: 1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.