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Unrated severityNVD Advisory· Published Dec 8, 2020· Updated Aug 4, 2024

CVE-2020-27756

CVE-2020-27756

Description

Divide-by-zero in ParseMetaGeometry() of ImageMagick prior to 7.0.9-0 can cause undefined behavior and denial of service via crafted input.

AI Insight

LLM-synthesized narrative grounded in this CVE's description and references.

Divide-by-zero in ParseMetaGeometry() of ImageMagick prior to 7.0.9-0 can cause undefined behavior and denial of service via crafted input.

Vulnerability

A divide-by-zero vulnerability exists in the ParseMetaGeometry() function in MagickCore/geometry.c of ImageMagick. The image height and width calculations can lead to division by zero, resulting in undefined behavior. This flaw affects ImageMagick versions prior to 7.0.9-0 [1]. The patch uses multiplication in addition to the function PerceptibleReciprocal() to prevent such divide-by-zero conditions [1].

Exploitation

An attacker can trigger the vulnerability by providing a specially crafted input file to ImageMagick for processing. No authentication or special network position is required; the attacker only needs to supply the malicious file to the application using ImageMagick [1].

Impact

Successful exploitation results in undefined behavior, which can lead to application crash and denial of service, impacting availability [1]. The confidentiality and integrity of data are not directly compromised per the available information.

Mitigation

The fix is included in ImageMagick version 7.0.9-0 [1]. Users should upgrade to at least this version. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6, and 7, this flaw is out of support scope [1]. Inkscape is not affected because it no longer uses a bundled ImageMagick in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 [1]. If an immediate upgrade is not possible, ensure that untrusted input files are not processed with ImageMagick.

References
  1. division by zero at MagickCore/geometry.c

AI Insight generated on May 26, 2026. Synthesized from this CVE's description and the cited reference URLs; citations are validated against the source bundle.

Affected products

20

Patches

0

No patches discovered yet.

Vulnerability mechanics

Root cause

"Missing guard against zero-valued denominators in image height and width calculations within ParseMetaGeometry() leads to divide-by-zero undefined behavior."

Attack vector

An attacker supplies a crafted input file that, when processed by ImageMagick, triggers a divide-by-zero condition in `ParseMetaGeometry()` [ref_id=1]. The flaw does not require authentication; the attacker only needs to deliver the malicious file to a victim or service that uses ImageMagick to parse image geometry. The resulting undefined behavior can impact application availability.

Affected code

The vulnerability resides in `ParseMetaGeometry()` within `MagickCore/geometry.c` [ref_id=1]. Image height and width calculations in this function can lead to divide-by-zero conditions.

What the fix does

The patch modifies the calculations in `ParseMetaGeometry()` to use multiplication combined with the `PerceptibleReciprocal()` function [ref_id=1]. This prevents the denominator from becoming zero, thereby eliminating the divide-by-zero condition and the associated undefined behavior.

Preconditions

  • inputThe victim or service must process a crafted input file using ImageMagick.
  • authNo authentication is required; the attacker only needs to deliver the malicious file.

Generated on May 31, 2026. Inputs: CWE entries + fix-commit diffs from this CVE's patches. Citations validated against bundle.

References

2

News mentions

0

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