stb_image is a single file MIT licensed library for processing images. It may look like `stbi__load_gif_main` doesn’t give guarantees about the content of output value `*delays` upon failure. Although it sets `*delays` to zero at the beginning, it doesn’t do it in case the image is not recognized as GIF and a call to `stbi__load_gif_main_outofmem` only frees possibly allocated memory in `*delays` without resetting it to zero. Thus it would be fair to say the caller of `stbi__load_gif_main` is responsible to free the allocated memory in `*delays` only if `stbi__load_gif_main` returns a non null value. However at the same time the function may return null value, but fail to free the memory in `*delays` if internally `stbi__convert_format` is called and fails. Thus the issue may lead to a memory leak if the caller chooses to free `delays` only when `stbi__load_gif_main` didn’t fail or to a double-free if the `delays` is always freed
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-45666 is rated Moderate Risk (49.8/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.96%). Mandatory action: Review affected assets and schedule remediation.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).
| # | Date | Old EPSS score | New EPSS score | Delta (New - Old) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-06-15 | 0.17% | 0.96% | +0.78% |
| 2 | 2025-11-21 | 0.68% | 0.17% | -0.51% |
| 3 | 2025-11-18 | — | 0.68% | — |
Full EPSS history (12 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.3 | 3.1 | HIGH |
|
3.9 | 3.4 | [email protected] |
| 9.8 | 3.1 | CRITICAL |
|
3.9 | 5.9 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
alpine
|
critical | CVE-2023-45666: 1 source package rows (stb); 6 state rows across 6 repos (3.19-community, 3.20-community, 3.21-community, 3.22-community, 3.23-community, edge-community); fixed 6, open 0. | https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2023-45666 |
debian
|
not yet assigned | CVE-2023-45666 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (libstb), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): open 5. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-45666 |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2023-45666 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (libstb), 12 status rows across 12 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): ignored 7, needs-triage 5. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-45666 |
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| nothings | stb_image.h | 2.28 | cpe:2.3:a:nothings:stb_image.h:2.28:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |