CriticalCVE-2016-3714

    ImageMagick Improper Input Validation Vulnerability (CVE-2016-3714)

    Published In CISA KEV since Sources: pwn.watch, CVE.org

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    What is affected, what to do

    The (1) EPHEMERAL, (2) HTTPS, (3) MVG, (4) MSL, (5) TEXT, (6) SHOW, (7) WIN, and (8) PLT coders in ImageMagick before 6.9.3-10 and 7.x before 7.0.1-1 allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via shell metacharacters in a crafted image, aka "ImageTragick."

    The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. The available sources name no fixed version. Check the vendor guidance in the references below. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.

    Affected
    • ImageMagick lte *..6.9.3-9
    • ImageMagick eq 7.0.0-0..7.0.0-0
    • ImageMagick eq 7.0.1-0..7.0.1-0
    • Canonical Ubuntu Linux eq 12.04..12.04
    • Canonical Ubuntu Linux eq 14.04..14.04
    • Canonical Ubuntu Linux eq 15.10..15.10
    • Canonical Ubuntu Linux eq 16.04..16.04
    • Debian Linux eq 8.0..8.0
    • Debian Linux eq 9.0..9.0
    • openSUSE Leap eq 42.1..42.1
    • OpenSUSE eq 13.2..13.2
    • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server eq 12..12

    Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

    Metrics

    8.4

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: NVD, CVSS v3

    8.4

    CVSS v3

    Severity High on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: pwn.watch, CVE.org

    97.5 %

    EPSS score

    High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 99.90

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    Critical
    Priority (0–325)

    The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?

    Read in glossary
    221.84 Methodology
    Exploit maturity

    An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.

    Read in glossary
    actively exploited
    XIEM Effective CVSS

    XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.

    Read in glossary
    8.4 Methodology
    CVSS v3

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

    Read in glossary
    8.4
    EPSS score

    The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.

    Read in glossary
    97.5 %
    High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.
    EPSS percentile

    The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.

    Read in glossary
    99.90
    Critical — this CVE ranks in the top fifth of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 80%).
    KEV status

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    Actively exploited
    Published
    In CISA KEV since

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    CISA assessment (SSVC)
    Exploitation: active · automatable · Technical impact: total
    Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 7 September 2024
    CWE

    CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.

    Read in glossary
    CWE-20

    Response and mitigation

    Why act now?

    Prioritisation rationale

    ImageTragick sits on KEV despite its age because ImageMagick is buried deep in web stacks, CMS plugins and container base images, and legacy instances persist at scale; attackers use public, trivially adaptable exploit files in automated mass scanning of upload features. Although the CVSS vector lists a local attack vector, in practice it is exploitable from the internet without authentication or user interaction wherever an application processes uploaded images server-side, and its exploitation likelihood is among the highest of any CVE. CISA does not flag known ransomware use; typical outcomes are webshells, cryptominers and data theft from web applications. Treat any internet-facing service with image upload and unpatched ImageMagick as critical (fix within 24 h), and internal batch processing of trusted files as high.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Inventory every ImageMagick instance: Run convert -version or magick -version across servers, containers and CI runners, and check package lists (dpkg -l | grep -i imagemagick) and base images. Vulnerable: ImageMagick before 6.9.3-10 and 7.x before 7.0.1-1. Don't miss indirect use via libraries: PHP Imagick, RMagick/MiniMagick (Paperclip, CarrierWave), Python Wand, Node gm/imagemagick, Java im4java.
      • Patch: Upgrade to ImageMagick 6.9.3-10 / 7.0.1-1 or later. For Ubuntu 12.04, 14.04, 15.10, 16.04 and Debian 8/9, apply the distribution security update (USN/DSA); look up the exact package version in the vendor advisory. Since these fixes date from 2016, any unpatched instance almost certainly sits on an end-of-life OS — schedule migration.
      • Harden policy.xml immediately (even on patched hosts): In /etc/ImageMagick-6/policy.xml or /etc/ImageMagick-7/policy.xml, deny the dangerous coders: <policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="{EPHEMERAL,HTTPS,HTTP,URL,FTP,MVG,MSL,TEXT,SHOW,WIN,PLT}" />. Verify with convert -list policy.
      • Prioritise internet-facing upload endpoints: Harden web apps with avatar, image or document upload and server-side thumbnailing first; if you cannot harden within hours, disable the upload feature temporarily.
      • Compromise assessment: On hosts that ran vulnerable ImageMagick behind a public upload, hunt for webshells, new cron jobs, unknown SSH keys and outbound connections from the web-server user; on hits, isolate the host and rotate application secrets (DB, cloud keys, API tokens).

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • Input validation (application): Check magic bytes before handing files to ImageMagick and accept only genuine JPEG/PNG/GIF/WebP signatures; file extension and Content-Type are meaningless. Force the decoder explicitly (e.g. png:input instead of input) so ImageMagick cannot infer the coder from file content.
      • Configuration hardening: Remove shell-invoking delegates (https, http, url, ephemeral) from delegates.xml; set resource limits in policy.xml (memory, disk, time). The same policy also covers the sibling ImageTragick CVEs (SSRF via url(), file read/delete via ephemeral:/msl:).
      • Process isolation (endpoint): Run image processing in dedicated, unprivileged containers or workers without shell access; apply a seccomp/AppArmor profile that blocks execve of /bin/sh, curl, wget, nc from convert/magick; keep the filesystem read-only except a scratch directory.
      • Network segmentation: Deny all egress from image-processing workers at the firewall/security group — this kills both reverse shells and SSRF variants. Block access to the cloud metadata endpoint 169.254.169.254.
      • WAF/IPS rule: Block multipart uploads whose image payload contains push graphic-context, viewbox, fill 'url(, image over, msl:, ephemeral:, or a | inside url(. Most IPS vendors ship ready-made ImageTragick signatures — confirm they are enabled.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • EDR process ancestry: web/runtime process (php-fpm, apache2, nginx, ruby, python, java, node) → convert/magick/identify/mogrify → sh/bash/curl/wget/nc. KQL: DeviceProcessEvents | where InitiatingProcessFileName in~ ("convert","magick","identify","mogrify") and FileName in~ ("sh","bash","dash","curl","wget","nc","python","perl").
      • Linux auditd / Sysmon for Linux: -a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S execve -F uid=www-data -k web_exec, then filter for execve whose parent is an ImageMagick binary; Sysmon for Linux EID 1 where ParentImage ends with /convert or /magick and Image is a shell.
      • File content (YARA/upload scanning): Files with image extensions that start with push graphic-context, contain <image (MSL), or url(https:// followed by | or ". Sigma shape: file_event in the upload directory plus logsource: webserver POST to upload paths, correlated with a shell process within 60 s.
      • Network telemetry (Zeek/Suricata): Outbound HTTP(S) or raw TCP on odd ports from image-processing hosts, requests to 169.254.169.254, and DNS lookups of unfamiliar domains by the web-server user right after an upload.
      • Web access logs: Bursts of .jpg/.png/.gif uploads returning HTTP 500 or abnormally slow responses — typical exploit probing; correlate the uploading IP with subsequent requests to newly created .php/.jsp files.

    Detection rules

    No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

    Classification under NIS2 and CRA

    Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

    NIS2

    NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.

    Read in glossary
    Actively exploited: treat the vulnerability as a priority in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2. If it is exploited in your environment, check the reporting obligation under Art. 23 (early warning within 24 hours).
    CRA

    The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.

    Read in glossary
    Since 11.09.2026, manufacturers of affected products with digital elements must report actively exploited vulnerabilities under Art. 14 CRA, with an early warning within 24 hours via ENISA's single reporting platform.
    ISO/IEC 27001

    ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.

    Read in glossary
    Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

    Description

    The (1) EPHEMERAL, (2) HTTPS, (3) MVG, (4) MSL, (5) TEXT, (6) SHOW, (7) WIN, and (8) PLT coders in ImageMagick before 6.9.3-10 and 7.x before 7.0.1-1 allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via shell metacharacters in a crafted image, aka "ImageTragick."

    Source: pwn.watch, NVD (NIST), cvelistv5, CISA KEV Catalog, CVE.org (MITRE)

    Affected products

    The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    imagemagickimagemagick
    • 7.0.0-0
    • 7.0.1-0
    • ≤ 6.9.3-9
    • —
    • —
    • —

    Vendors and products

    Affected operating systems

    Affected operating systems
    Linuxdebiandebian_linux8.0
    Linuxdebiandebian_linux9.0
    Linuxopensuseleap42.1
    Linuxopensuseopensuse13.2
    Linuxsusesuse_linux_enterprise_server12
    Linuxcanonicalubuntu_linux12.04
    Linuxcanonicalubuntu_linux14.04
    Linuxcanonicalubuntu_linux15.10
    Linuxcanonicalubuntu_linux16.04

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-20Improper Input Validation

      Class

      The product receives input or data, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input has the properties that are required to process the data safely and correctly.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-20

    Public exploit references

    Publicly reported proof-of-concepts, exploit modules and detection templates for this vulnerability. NEOSEC links to the original sources only and does not provide any exploit code.

    Public exploit references
    CISA KEV CatalogCISA Known Exploited Vulnerability (opens in a new tab)cisa.govactively exploited
    Metasploit FrameworkMetasploit: exploit/unix/fileformat/imagemagick_delegate (opens in a new tab)rapid7.comweaponized (Metasploit module)reported, not verified—
    Packet StormImageTragick ImageMagick Proof Of Concepts (opens in a new tab)packetstormsecurity.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—
    Exploit-DBEDB-ID 39767 (opens in a new tab)exploit-db.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—
    Exploit-DBEDB-ID 39791 (opens in a new tab)exploit-db.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—
    PoC-in-GitHub (nomi-sec)vulhub-imagemagick-cve-2016-3714 (opens in a new tab)github.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified

    References & sources

    • access.redhat.comsecurity/vulnerabilities/2296071x_refsource_CONFIRM, Third-party advisory
    • git.imagemagick.orgrepos/ImageMagick/blob/a01518e08c840577cabd7d3ff291a9ba735f7276…x_refsource_CONFIRM, Patch
    • lists.opensuse.orgopenSUSE-SU-2016:1266Vendor advisory, x_refsource_SUSE, Third-party advisory
    • securitytracker.com1035742Vulnerability database, x_refsource_SECTRACK, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
    • imagetragick.comx_refsource_MISC, Vendor advisory
    • oracle.comtechnetwork/topics/security/linuxbulletinapr2016-2952096.htmlx_refsource_CONFIRM, Third-party advisory
    • imagemagick.orgdiscourse-server/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=29588x_refsource_CONFIRM, Vendor advisory
    • openwall.com[oss-security] 20160503 ImageMagick Is On Fire -- CVE-2016-3714Mailing list, x_refsource_MLIST, Mailing list
    • lists.opensuse.orgSUSE-SU-2016:1301Vendor advisory, x_refsource_SUSE, Third-party advisory
    • lists.opensuse.orgopenSUSE-SU-2016:1326Vendor advisory, x_refsource_SUSE, Third-party advisory
    • ubuntu.comUSN-2990-1Vendor advisory, x_refsource_UBUNTU, Third-party advisory
    • lists.opensuse.orgopenSUSE-SU-2016:1261Vendor advisory, x_refsource_SUSE, Third-party advisory
    • securityfocus.com20160513 May 2016 - HipChat Server - Critical Security AdvisoryMailing list, x_refsource_BUGTRAQ, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
    • exploit-db.com39767Exploit, x_refsource_EXPLOIT-DB, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
    • lists.opensuse.orgSUSE-SU-2016:1260Vendor advisory, x_refsource_SUSE, Third-party advisory
    • rapid7.comdb/modules/exploit/unix/fileformat/imagemagick_delegatex_refsource_MISC, Third-party advisory
    • oracle.comtechnetwork/topics/security/bulletinjul2016-3090568.htmlx_refsource_CONFIRM, Third-party advisory
    • openwall.com[oss-security] 20160504 Re: ImageMagick Is On Fire -- CVE-2016-3714Mailing list, x_refsource_MLIST, Mailing list
    • debian.orgDSA-3746Vendor advisory, x_refsource_DEBIAN, Third-party advisory
    • security.gentoo.orgGLSA-201611-21Vendor advisory, x_refsource_GENTOO, Third-party advisory
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