CVE Alert: CVE-2025-35984 – SAIL Image Decoding Library – SAIL Image Decoding Library

Risk verdict: High risk due to a heap-based buffer overflow enabling remote code execution when decoding crafted PCX files; exploitation requires user interaction and file processing, but the network attack surface remains, so patching should be treated promptly.

Why this matters: A successful exploit could compromise host integrity, hijack execution, or exfiltrate data from image-processing components exposed to untrusted inputs. Given full confidentiality, integrity, and availability impacts, attackers could gain control of affected processes without initial privileges, enabling broader lateral movement within the host if those processes are networked.

Most likely attack path: An attacker sends a specially crafted PCX payload over a network interface or prompts a user to open or trigger decoding of remote content. The library decodes the file, triggers a heap overflow, and executes code in the context of the calling process. No privileges are required, but user interaction is needed; if the library runs within a service, code could affect that service’s scope and potential persistence.

Who is most exposed: Deployments that decode PCX images from untrusted sources—web services, content pipelines, document/image viewers, or cloud-based image processing—where the decoding library is invoked with incoming data.

Detection ideas:

• Crashes or abnormal heap-related errors in the image decoding module.
• Unexplained process termination following image processing.
• Memory corruption symptoms in logs (heap corruption, segfaults) during PCX decoding.
• Unusual large or malformed image payloads detected in input queues.
• Incident-triggered memory dumps or crashes tied to the library.

Mitigation and prioritisation:

• Apply vendor patch or upgrade to fixed version as a priority.
• Disable or sandbox PCX decoding where possible; isolate decoding in a restricted process.
• Enforce strict input validation and limit processing of untrusted content; use allowlists.
• Enable memory-safety mitigations and ASLR/DEP; restrict network exposure of image services.
• Establish change-management notes and monitor for related exploitation indicators; if a patch exists, treat as high priority once deployed.