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Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2012-2840 json

Off-by-one error in the exif_convert_utf16_to_utf8 function in exif-entry.c in the EXIF Tag Parsing Library (aka libexif) before 0.6.21 all…

published 2012-07-13 14 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2012-2820

cvss
7.5
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
5.1%
EPSS 5.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 92%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Off-by-one error in the exif_convert_utf16_to_utf8 function in exif-entry.c in the EXIF Tag Parsing Library (aka libexif) before 0.6.21 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly execute arbitrary code via crafted EXIF tags in an image.

Patch / fix

  • libexif Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 0.6.20-3

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2012-2840

  • libexif RHEL 5 0.6.21-1.el5_8
  • libexif RHEL 6 0.6.21-5.el6_3

red hat advisories RHSA-2012:1255

  • libexif openSUSE Tumbleweed 0.6.21-10.8

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10510-1

  • libexif Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +14 more 0.6.21-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2012-2840

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2012-2840 updated cvss 6.8

libexif: "exif_convert_utf16_to_utf8()" off-by-one

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server) libexif 0.6.21-1.el5_8 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) libexif 0.6.21-1.el5_8 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 6) libexif 0.6.21-5.el6_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop Optional (v. 6) libexif 0.6.21-5.el6_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux HPC Node Optional (v. 6) libexif 0.6.21-5.el6_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 6) libexif 0.6.21-5.el6_3
    +2 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 6) libexif 0.6.21-5.el6_3 Red Hat RHEL Desktop Workstation (v. 5 client) libexif 0.6.21-1.el5_8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2012:1255

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

5.06% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 92% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 7.5 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.