Exiv2 has quadratic performance in ICC profile parsing in JpegBase::readMetadata
Date: 2025-08
Affected: pip/Exiv2
Attack vector: dos
Category: vulnerability-disclosure
Severity: Low
CVE: CVE-2025-55304
CWE: CWE-407

### Impact A denial-of-service was found in Exiv2 version v0.28.5: a quadratic algorithm in the ICC profile parsing code in `jpegBase::readMetadata()` can cause Exiv2 to run for a long time. Exiv2 is a command-line utility and C++ library for reading, writing, deleting, and modifying the metadata of image files. The denial-of-service is triggered when Exiv2 is used to read the metadata of a crafted jpg image file. ### Patches The bug is fixed in version v0.28.6. ### References Issue: https://github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/issues/3333 Fixes: https://github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/pull/3335 (main branch), https://github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/pull/3345 (0.28.x branch) ### For more information Please see our [security policy](https://github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/security/policy) for information about Exiv2 security.


Mitigations:

Architectural layers (MAESTRO):