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OpenAdvisories
High · 7.5 CVE-2026-33633 EUVD-2026-30964

Kitty has a Heap Buffer Overflow in its Graphics Protocol Handler

Published May 19, 2026 · Updated May 20, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

Kitty is a cross-platform GPU based terminal. Versions 0.46.2 and below contain a heap buffer overflow in load_image_data() that allows any process which can write to the terminal's stdin to crash kitty immediately. The vulnerability is triggered by a single APC graphics protocol command with a PNG format declaration (f=100) whose payload exceeds twice the initial buffer capacity. The overflow is attacker-controlled in both length and content, causing DoS and potentially escalation to RCE itself. This issue has been fixed in version 0.47.0.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
kovidgoyal kitty < 0.47.0 —

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.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 14 kitty 0.47.0-1 —
Debian 13 kitty 0.41.1-2+deb13u1 —
Debian 12 kitty No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 25.10 kitty 0.41.1-2+deb13u1build0.25.10.1 —
Show 4 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu Pro 26.04 LTS kitty 0.45.0-1ubuntu0.1~esm1 —
Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS kitty 0.32.2-1ubuntu0.4+esm1 —
Ubuntu Pro 22.04 LTS kitty 0.21.2-1ubuntu0.22.04.1+esm1 —
Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS kitty 0.15.0-1ubuntu0.2+esm1 —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Leap 16.0 kitty 0.48.2-bp160.1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:21599-1

Advisories 1

References