What is CVE-2018-14551?

CVE-2018-14551 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Imagemagick, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2018-07-23.

How severe is CVE-2018-14551?

Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.

Buffer overflow in Imagemagick

CVE-2018-14551

The ReadMATImageV4 function in coders/mat.c in ImageMagick 7.0.8-7 uses an uninitialized variable, leading to memory corruption.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2018-07-23 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.8 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.040 (90.3th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 90th percentile — 90.3% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.040 · newest: 0.040 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Imagemagick — versions 7.0.8-7
Canonical Ubuntu Linux — versions 18.04

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

github.com/ImageMagick/ImageMagick/issues/1221 (Exploit, Third Party Advisory)
usn.ubuntu.com/3785-1/ (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/08/msg00030.html (mailing-list)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-14551?: CVE-2018-14551 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Imagemagick, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2018-07-23.
How severe is CVE-2018-14551?: Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.