HEIF Heist: one C image parser bug chain hits OpenAI, Slack, Meta and GitHub Enterprise
ccerrato147 · x · 2026-09-19
Security research team Hacktron published "HEIF Heist", a class of remote attack paths targeting services that decode attacker-controlled HEIF/HEIC/AVIF images. The vulnerable surface lives in native C/C++ decoders libheif and libde265 (versions 1.19–1.23 all affected), which sneak into production via ImageMagick, libvips, Sharp, distro packages, and container base images — bundled in and unaudited for years.
Confirmed impact
- OpenAI: dump of private repositories; researchers got $6,500 and were told Discourse testing was "out of scope"
- Slack: RCE leaking files
- Meta's core product suite: RCE via image upload
- GitHub Enterprise: authenticated RCE, CVE-2026-19118
- Discourse: authenticated RCE
- Next.js: unauthenticated RCE via AVIF image optimization, with tokens, AWS keys, and user files right behind it
- Multiple additional web frameworks/CMS and apps affected
Attackers can fingerprint the remote libheif version by probing upload endpoints with crafted .avif/.heic files, then fire a version-matched n-day or 0-day payload for memory corruption, data exfiltration, or RCE. The author's thesis: half of tech sits on one C image parser nobody chose and nobody audits — one uploaded picture is enough.
Related event: HEIF Heist: Image Parser Bugs Expose OpenAI, Meta, GitHub to RCE(8 posts)→
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