Description
libvips is a demand-driven, horizontally threaded image processing library. The heifsave operation could incorrectly determine the presence of an alpha channel in an input when it was not possible to determine the colour interpretation, known internally within libvips as "multiband". There aren't many ways to create a "multiband" input, but it is possible with a well-crafted TIFF image. If a "multiband" TIFF input image had 4 channels and HEIF-based output was requested, this led to libvips creating a 3 channel HEIF image without an alpha channel but then attempting to write 4 channels of data. This caused a heap buffer overflow, which could crash the process. This vulnerability is fixed in 8.16.1.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| libvips | libvips | < 8.16.1 | — |
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Debian
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 14 | vips | 8.16.1-1 | — |
| Debian 13 | vips | 8.16.1-1 | — |
| Debian 12 | vips | 8.14.1-3+deb12u2 | DSA-5915-1 |
| Debian 11 | vips | 8.10.5-2+deb11u1 | DLA-4148-1 |
Ubuntu
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 25.10 | vips | No fix yet | — |
Show 4 more (older releases, extended support, other products)Fewer releases
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu Pro 26.04 LTS | vips | 8.18.0-1ubuntu0.1~esm1 | USN-8755-1 |
| Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS | vips | 8.15.1-1.1ubuntu0.1~esm1 | USN-8755-1 |
| Ubuntu Pro 22.04 LTS | vips | 8.12.1-1ubuntu0.1~esm2 | USN-8755-1 |
| Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS | vips | 8.9.1-2ubuntu0.1~esm1 | USN-8755-1 |
Advisories 3
- USN-8755-1 vips vulnerability Ubuntu Security Notices (USN) · Sep 14, 2026
- DSA-5915-1 vips - security update Debian Security (DSA / DLA) · Mar 9, 2026
- DLA-4148-1 vips - security update Debian Security (DSA / DLA) · Mar 9, 2026