CVE-2023-44271Network attack vector

Service crash via unbounded ImageFont text processing

Published Nov 3, 2023 · Updated Aug 2, 2024

Denial of service in Pillow before 10.0.0 allows remote attackers to crash a consuming service via an excessively long text argument. ImageFont methods process arbitrary-length strings without a character limit, causing text measurement through ImageDraw to allocate memory until exhaustion. Exploitation requires an application to pass attacker-controlled text to the TrueType font measurement path; the bounded consequence is a process or service crash.

CVSS severity7.5
High
EPSS probability1.13%
Next 30 days · Sep 16, 2026
Known exploitationUnconfirmed
Based on sourced intelligence
Hinoki checkNot available
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Summary

What happened

Denial of service in Pillow before 10.0.0 allows remote attackers to crash a consuming service via an excessively long text argument. ImageFont methods process arbitrary-length strings without a character limit, causing text measurement through ImageDraw to allocate memory until exhaustion. Exploitation requires an application to pass attacker-controlled text to the TrueType font measurement path; the bounded consequence is a process or service crash.

The record

CVE
CVE-2023-44271
Published
Nov 3, 2023
Updated
Aug 2, 2024
Vendor
Unknown vendor
Product
Unknown product
Classifications
CWE-770, T1499
Attack vector
network
Privileges
unauthenticated

Timeline

How it unfolded

  1. Nov 3, 2023CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
  2. Aug 2, 2024Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.

Exploitability

Present is not the same as exploitable

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Is a vulnerable build present?

Affected buildAffected product and version details are unavailable.

What conditions does exploitation require?

Attack vectornetwork
Required privilegesunauthenticated

What is affected?

Affected products and versions are unavailable in this record.

Published CVSS scores

7.5National Vulnerability DatabaseCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
8.7GitHub Advisory DatabaseCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.

Attacks

What attackers are doing with it

Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.

Daily unique IPsNo honeypot observations are available for this CVE in the selected window.

No observations available

Sep 9, 2026Sep 15, 2026
Latest reporting daySep 15, 2026
Latest daily unique IPsUnavailable
Prior 30-day averageUnavailable
SourceShadowserver honeypots (KEV)
Vectornetwork
Privilegesunauthenticated
Known exploitationUnconfirmed
Public exploitUnconfirmed

Weakness, pattern, technique

CWE-770Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
T1499Endpoint Denial of Service

Public exploit references

No public exploit references are available in this record.

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Technologies

Your stack

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Your stack

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