CVE-2026-25965: ImageMagick's policy bypass through path traversal allows reading restricted content despite secured policy

Affected versions

NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.

• imagemagick imagemagickbefore 6.9.13-40
• imagemagick imagemagick7.0.0-0 and later · before 7.1.2-15

Versions reported by the vendor

Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (GitHub_M). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.

• ImageMagick ImageMagick

  • >= 7.0.0, < 7.1.2-15, < 6.9.13-40affected

Package-level exposure

OSV and GitHub Advisory data: ecosystem, package and range. SBOM matching uses this table.

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

• CVE-2016-3714The (1) EPHEMERAL, (2) HTTPS, (3) MVG, (4) MSL, (5) TEXT, (6) SHOW, (7) WIN, and (8) PLT coders in ImageMagick before 6.9.3-10 and 7.x beforKEV
  92Now
• CVE-2016-3718The (1) HTTP and (2) FTP coders in ImageMagick before 6.9.3-10 and 7.x before 7.0.1-1 allow remote attackers to conduct server-side request KEV
  75This week
• CVE-2016-3715The EPHEMERAL coder in ImageMagick before 6.9.3-10 and 7.x before 7.0.1-1 allows remote attackers to delete arbitrary files via a crafted imKEV
  75This week

Published before and after this one in the same product

• ← EarlierCVE-2026-25897Feb 23, 2026 · ImageMagick has heap overflow in sun decoder on 32-bit systems that can result in out of bounds write
  39Monitor
• ← EarlierCVE-2026-25898Feb 23, 2026 · Imagemagick Has Global Buffer Overflow (OOB Read) via Negative Pixel Index in UIL and XPM Writer
  36Monitor
• Later →CVE-2026-25966Feb 23, 2026 · ImageMagick's Security Policy Bypass through config/policy-secure.xml via "fd handler" leads to stdin/stdout access
  31Monitor

Root cause

A user-supplied file name is joined with the allowed directory, but the result is never checked to confirm it is still inside that directory.

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

1const file = path.join(ROOT, req.query.name);2res.sendFile(file);

1const file = path.resolve(ROOT, req.query.name);2if (!file.startsWith(ROOT + path.sep)) {3  return res.sendStatus(400);4}5res.sendFile(file);

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.