CVE-2016-5102 Libtiff CVE debrief

Who should care

Administrators and maintainers who ship or embed LibTIFF, especially environments that use gif2tiff or process untrusted GIF content. Package maintainers for Linux distributions and downstream products should also care because the source references multiple distro advisories and bug trackers.

Technical summary

The vulnerability is a memory-safety issue in gif2tiff's GIF parsing path, specifically the readgifimage function in gif2tiff.c. According to the source record, crafted input can trigger a buffer overflow and cause a crash. The NVD entry associates the issue with libtiff versions up to and including 4.0.6. The record also shows a CVSS 3.0 vector of AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H, which suggests the impact is availability-focused and requires user interaction, even though the brief description mentions remote attackers.

Defensive priority

Medium. This is a crash-oriented parsing vulnerability rather than a confirmed code-execution issue in the supplied record, but it still matters for applications that automatically or routinely convert untrusted image files.

Recommended defensive actions

• Upgrade LibTIFF to a version newer than 4.0.6 in affected environments.
• Review whether gif2tiff is installed or exposed in your build, runtime, or image-processing workflows.
• Treat untrusted GIF files as potentially dangerous until patched versions are deployed.
• Monitor distro/vendor advisories referenced in the record for package-specific remediation guidance.
• If immediate upgrading is not possible, remove or disable workflows that invoke gif2tiff on untrusted input.

Evidence notes

The CVE record and NVD detail page identify LibTIFF 4.0.6 as affected, cite a buffer overflow in readgifimage within gif2tiff.c, and describe denial of service via segmentation fault from a crafted GIF file. Supporting references in the source item include the Maptools bug tracker, Red Hat Bugzilla, Gentoo GLSA 201701-16, Ubuntu USN-3606-1, and SecurityFocus BID 96049. NVD also lists CWE-20 and CVSS 3.0 5.5.

Official resources