CVE-2026-53532

Description

OpenEXR is the reference implementation and specification for the EXR image format, widely used in the motion picture industry. In versions 3.4.0 through 3.4.12, a crafted HTJ2K-compressed EXR file causes an unconditional process abort in any application that calls exr_start_read() on untrusted input, resulting in denial of service. The crash is triggered by a QCD marker whose lower five bits are zero, which OpenEXR passes into the vendored OpenJPH library while constructing the codestream and evaluating its quantization delta parameters. OpenJPH uses an assertion rather than a recoverable error to validate those bits, so any invalid value calls abort() directly and cannot be intercepted by surrounding error handling, a problem compounded by OpenEXR wrapping only its internal HT header parser in error handling while leaving the later codestream read and construction calls unprotected. This issue has been resolved in version 3.4.13.

Is your site exposed to CVE-2026-53532?

Run a free security scan — no signup, results in seconds.

EPSS — Exploit Prediction

0.0026

Probability of exploitation

0.18%

Percentile rank

EPSS estimates the probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. A higher score means more likely to be exploited.

Weakness Type (CWE)

CWE-617 CWE-617

References

Other References

https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/openexr/releases/tag/v3.4.13 https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/openexr/security/advisories/GHSA-2f85-52wj-hc3c

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2026-53532? +

OpenEXR is the reference implementation and specification for the EXR image format, widely used in the motion picture industry. In versions 3.4.0 through 3.4.12, a crafted HTJ2K-compressed EXR file causes an unconditional process abort in any application that calls exr_start_read() on untrusted input, resulting in denial of service. The crash is triggered by a QCD marker whose lower five bits are zero, which OpenEXR passes into the vendored OpenJPH library while constructing the codestream and evaluating its quantization delta parameters. OpenJPH uses an assertion rather than a recoverable error to validate those bits, so any invalid value calls abort() directly and cannot be intercepted by surrounding error handling, a problem compounded by OpenEXR wrapping only its internal HT header parser in error handling while leaving the later codestream read and construction calls unprotected. This issue has been resolved in version 3.4.13.

How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2026-53532? +

You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.

Related Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-13058

An authenticated user with basic write privileges can cause the mongod process to terminate abnormally by sending a crafted transaction …

CVE-2025-4321

In a Bluetooth device, using RS9116-WiseConnect SDK experiences a Denial of Service, if it receives malformed L2CAP packets, only hard …

CVE-2025-34458

wb2osz/direwolf (Dire Wolf) versions up to and including 1.8, prior to commit 3658a87, contain a reachable assertion vulnerability in the …

CVE-2026-29116

A vulnerability has been found in some Dahua products could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to send a specially crafted …

CVE-2026-35058

Improper validation of packet length during tls-crypt-v2 key extraction in OpenVPN 2.6.0 through 2.6.19 and 2.7_alpha1 through 2.7.1 allows authenticated …

CVE-2026-19401

Any remote client can crash a (debugging/non-release build type) NSD serve child by sending it a special crafted message with …