FERRAMENTAS LINUX: Critical Security Advisory: Mitigating libavif Vulnerabilities CVE-2025-48174 and CVE-2025-48175 in Mageia Linux

Critical security vulnerabilities, CVE-2025-48174 & CVE-2025-48175, discovered in libavif prior to v1.3.0. Our advisory details the buffer & integer overflow risks, impacted Mageia Linux systems, and the urgent patch protocol to secure your digital assets.

Understanding the Threat Landscape

The discovery of critical security vulnerabilities within a core media library is a stark reminder of the persistent threats in the open-source software ecosystem. This comprehensive security advisory addresses two high-severity flaws identified in libavif, the ubiquitous library for handling AV1 Image File Format (AVIF) images.

Designated as CVE-2025-48174 and CVE-2025-48175, these vulnerabilities involve dangerous buffer and integer overflows that could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system. For administrators of Mageia Linux distributions, specifically version 9, the release of advisory MGASA-2025-0257 mandates immediate attention and remediation.

This analysis provides not only the technical details but also the crucial steps for securing your systems against these exploitable weaknesses, ensuring the integrity and security of your IT infrastructure.

Technical Deep Dive: Deconstructing the libavif Vulnerabilities

To fully appreciate the risk, one must understand the technical mechanics of these flaws. The libavif library is integral to decoding and processing the modern, efficient AVIF image format, which is increasingly common across the web and desktop applications.

CVE-2025-48174: Buffer Overflow in Stream Handling

The first vulnerability, CVE-2025-48174, resides in the makeRoom function within stream.c. This function is responsible for ensuring the internal data stream has sufficient memory allocated to handle incoming data.

A critical integer overflow occurs when calculating the required buffer size for the operation stream->offset + size. If this calculation exceeds the maximum value an integer can hold, it wraps around, resulting in a much smaller buffer being allocated than is necessary.

Subsequently, when data is written to this inadequately sized buffer, it overflows, corrupting adjacent memory. This memory corruption is a classic attack vector that can be weaponized to crash an application or, more critically, to inject and execute malicious code.

CVE-2025-48175: Integer Overflows in Color Conversion

The second flaw, CVE-2025-48175, is found in the avifImageRGBToYUV function in reformat.c. This function handles the complex task of converting images from the RGB color space to the YUV color space.

The vulnerability manifests in multiple integer overflows during multiplication operations involving stride values: rgbRowBytes, yRowBytes, uRowBytes, and vRowBytes. These values represent the width, in bytes, of a single row of pixel data in memory.

When processing a specially crafted, malicious AVIF image, these multiplications can overflow, leading to incorrect memory allocations. This can cause out-of-bounds memory reads or writes, again creating a pathway for denial-of-service attacks or remote code execution.

Impact Assessment and Risk Analysis for Enterprises

What does this mean for your organization? The ramifications of these libavif vulnerabilities are significant. Any application or system service that leverages the vulnerable versions of libavif to process AVIF images is potentially at risk. This includes:

Web servers generating thumbnails from user-uploaded images.
Desktop environments and image viewers that render AVIF files.
Content Management Systems (CMS) that perform server-side image optimization.

The common attack scenario involves an attacker uploading a meticulously crafted malicious AVIF file.

When this file is processed by the vulnerable libavif code on a server or workstation, it triggers the overflow, potentially granting the attacker the same privileges as the application processing the image. In a worst-case scenario, this could lead to a full system compromise.

The urgency of this threat is underscored by its listing in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database and its prompt addressing by the Mageia security team.

Resolution and Patch Management Protocol

The resolution for these critical security vulnerabilities is straightforward and non-negotiable: immediate patching. The Mageia project has acted swiftly, releasing updated libavif packages that contain the necessary fixes.

Steps for Securing Mageia Linux Systems

For systems running Mageia 9, the patching process is integrated into the standard package management workflow. The specific fixed package is libavif-0.11.1-1.1.mga9. To apply the update and secure your system, follow these steps:

Open a terminal with root privileges.
Update your system's package repository cache by running the command: urpmi.update -a
Upgrade the libavif package by executing: urpmi libavif
Restart any services or applications that may have loaded the old libavif library into memory. A full system reboot is the most thorough way to ensure this.

This patch completely resolves the integer overflow flaws, replacing the vulnerable calculations with safe, bounds-checked operations. Can you afford the operational risk of delaying this critical update?

Proactive Security Posture and Best Practices

Beyond reactive patching, a robust cybersecurity framework involves proactive measures. This incident highlights the importance of several key practices:

Subscribe to Security Mailing Lists: Following announcements from distributions like Mageia and upstream sources is crucial for timely information.

Implement a Consistent Patch Management Cycle: Automate updates where possible and establish a regular schedule for applying security patches across your infrastructure.

Leverage Vulnerability Scanners: Utilize tools that can scan your systems for known vulnerabilities in installed software packages.

Practice the Principle of Least Privilege: Run applications and services with the minimum privileges required to limit the potential damage of a successful exploit.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1: What is libavif and why is it important?

A1: libavif is an open-source library used to encode and decode images in the AV1 Image File Format (AVIF). This format offers superior compression and quality compared to older formats like JPEG and PNG, making it fundamental to modern web and application performance.

Q2: Are other Linux distributions besides Mageia affected by these CVEs?

A2: Yes, any system or application using a version of libavif prior to 1.3.0 is potentially vulnerable. The vulnerabilities were addressed upstream. For instance, the project also released its own security advisory, as referenced in the original notice.

Q3: How can I verify what version of libavif is installed on my system?

A3: You can typically check using your package manager. On Mageia, the command rpm -q libavif will display the installed version. Ensure it is the patched version or later.

Q4: What is the direct risk of a buffer overflow vulnerability?

A4: A successful buffer overflow exploit can allow an attacker to overwrite critical memory structures. This can lead to application crashes () or, more dangerously, the execution of arbitrary malicious code with the permissions of the compromised application.