HEIF Heist: image parser RCE chain nets $100k Meta bounty, hits OpenAI repos and more
evilsocket · x · 2026-09-25
Hacktron researchers detail 'HEIF Heist', a class of attacks against services decoding attacker-controlled HEIF/HEIC/AVIF images via native libheif/libde265 parsers.
- $100k bounty from Meta for RCE on FB/Instagram via image upload
- Other impacts: dump of OpenAI private repos, Slack RCE leaking files, Redacted user and AWS token leaks, authenticated RCE on Discourse and GitHub Enterprise (CVE-2026-19118), unauthenticated RCE in Next.js via AVIF optimization
- Vulnerable code enters production indirectly via ImageMagick, libvips, Sharp, distro packages, and container base images
- Attack flow: fingerprint remote libheif version with crafted .avif/.heic probes, then fire a version-matched n-day/0-day payload for memory corruption or RCE
- Research grew out of security work targeting frontier AI labs
Related event: HEIF Heist: AI Finds Uncatalogued Image Parsing Flaws, Earns $100K Bounty(2 posts)→
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