Pillow: TiffDecode returns uninitialized memory as pixels for short JPEG strips

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TiffDecode returns uninitialized memory as pixels for short JPEG strips
Location: src/libImaging/TiffDecode.c:554  in _decodeStrip()
Commit:   a707c6b21c313880d0771e54965d142dd42358b6
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Pillow hands back leftover process memory as image pixels when it opens a small crafted TIFF file. Anyone who can get an application to open their image, and can see something produced from its pixels (a thumbnail, a preview, a converted copy), can read heap memory that the process had previously used and freed. This works in the default configuration: opening and loading the 478-byte file succeeds with no error or warning, and every row below the first eight holds stale memory instead of picture content.

The bug is in _decodeStrip() in src/libImaging/TiffDecode.c, and _decodeTile() has the same shape. The function realloc()s state->buffer to TIFFStripSize() bytes without initialising it and calls TIFFReadEncodedStrip(). Whenever that call does not return -1, it copies all RowsPerStrip rows of the buffer into the image. libtiff's JPEG codec only warns when the JPEG embedded in a strip has fewer rows than the strip, and Pillow silences libtiff warnings. The codec decodes the rows that exist and still returns the full strip size, so the untouched remainder is copied out as pixels. libtiff's Group 4 fax codec behaves the same way for a stream that ends early.

The attached reproducer builds a 256×256 TIFF whose single strip or tile is a 256×8 JPEG. Before loading it, the script frees buffers filled with b"LEAK". It then finds 15,872 copies of LEAK in rows 8–255 of the decoded image (the same freed chunk was reused in 500 of 500 runs). Under glibc's MALLOC_PERTURB_, those rows are entirely the allocator's fill byte. A well-formed control file decodes correctly in both cases.

This is a read of uninitialised heap memory, not memory corruption. Each strip can disclose up to width × RowsPerStrip bytes, and what comes back depends on the allocator's state at the time. The strip path was introduced in e91b851fdc1c ("Add reading old-JPEG compressed TIFFs", first released in Pillow 6.0.0). The tile path has had the same pattern since f0436a4ddc95 (Pillow 5.3.0).

Details

src/libImaging/TiffDecode.c decodes compressed TIFFs through libtiff into a strip (or tile) buffer that it realloc()s to TIFFStripSize() bytes and never initialises, and then copies all RowsPerStrip rows of that buffer into the image whenever TIFFReadEncodedStrip() does not return -1. libtiff's JPEG codec does not fail when the JPEG stream inside a strip has fewer rows than the strip: it decodes the rows that exist and returns the full strip size. The rows it did not write are whatever the heap held before, and Pillow returns them as pixels.

A 478-byte file shows it: a classic little-endian TIFF, 256×256, BitsPerSample=8, Compression=7, PhotometricInterpretation=1, RowsPerStrip=256, one strip whose data is a baseline JPEG of 256×8 pixels (as written by Image.new("L",(256,8),200).save(…,"JPEG")). Image.open(BytesIO(data)).load() succeeds with default settings (compressed TIFFs always take the libtiff path). Rows 0–7 of the result are the JPEG content (value 200); the remaining 63488 bytes of im.tobytes() are heap garbage: run under glibc's MALLOC_PERTURB_=1 they are all 0xFE, under MALLOC_PERTURB_=170 all 0x55 (the fresh-malloc fill byte), and in a process that has just freed buffers containing b"LEAK" they contain 15872 copies of LEAK.

Feeding the same file to libtiff 4.5.0 directly confirms the library side: TIFFReadEncodedStrip(t, 0, buf, 65536) prints JPEGPreDecode: Warning, Improper JPEG strip/tile size, expected 256x256, got 256x8., returns 65536, and leaves 63488 of the 65536 buffer bytes untouched. Pillow installs TIFFSetWarningHandler(NULL) (TiffDecode.c:682), so the warning is not visible either.

The strip path:

// src/libImaging/TiffDecode.c:552
    /* realloc to fit whole strip */
    /* malloc check above */
    new_data = realloc(state->buffer, state->bytes);      // state->bytes = TIFFStripSize()
    …
    state->buffer = new_data;

    for (; state->y < state->ysize; state->y += rows_per_strip) {
        …
            if (TIFFReadEncodedStrip(
                    tiff,
                    TIFFComputeStrip(tiff, state->y, plane),
                    (tdata_t)state->buffer,
                    strip_size
                ) == -1) {
                … return -1;
            }
            …
            // iterate over each row in the strip and stuff data into image
            for (strip_row = 0;
                 strip_row < MIN((INT32)rows_per_strip, state->ysize - state->y);
                 strip_row++) {
                …
                shuffler(
                    (UINT8 *)im->image[state->y + state->yoff + strip_row] +
                        state->xoff * im->pixelsize,
                    state->buffer + strip_row * row_byte_size,
                    state->xsize
                );

state->buffer arrives here as the one-row calloc made by decode.c:230 ((bits*xsize+7)/8 = 256 bytes for the example). The realloc to 65536 bytes hands back a different, uninitialised chunk; nothing zeroes it. TIFFReadEncodedStrip() returns the nominal strip size on success, not the number of rows produced, and the only check is == -1, so the row loop unconditionally copies 256 rows × 256 bytes into im->image (which itself is zeroed by core.new, so the garbage provably comes from state->buffer). _decodeTile() has the same shape (TiffDecode.c:448 realloc to TIFFTileSize(), then tile_length rows copied after each TIFFReadTile() at 460–488).

For a well-formed file the JPEG inside the strip is 256×256, libtiff fills all 65536 bytes and the copy is correct. The malicious file differs only in the SOF height of the embedded JPEG; libtiff treats "JPEG smaller than strip" as a warning, clamps the row count to the JPEG height, and reports success.

JPEG is not the only libtiff codec that succeeds on a short strip. Fax4Decode (Compression=4) returns success for a T.6 stream that ends early: a 133-byte 512×256 1-bit TIFF whose strip is the Group 4 stream of a 512×16 image loads without error, libtiff writes 17 rows (1088 bytes) of the 16384-byte buffer (Fax4Decode: Warning, Premature EOL at line 16, return value 16384) and the other 15296 bytes are again heap contents. LZW, Deflate, PackBits, Group 3 and CCITT RLE were checked and do return -1 on short data, so Pillow raises OSError for those.

The strip path was introduced in e91b851fdc1c ("Add reading old-JPEG compressed TIFFs", 2018-12-08), first released in Pillow 6.0.0, which replaced row-by-row TIFFReadScanline() (where libtiff errors on the first missing row) with the whole-strip realloc() and copy. The tile path has had the same shape since it was added in f0436a4ddc95 (2018-07-02, Pillow 5.3.0).

Impact

Any application that opens attacker-supplied images with Pillow in the default configuration and returns something derived from the pixels (thumbnail, preview, format conversion, OCR text) discloses freed heap memory of the worker process to the uploader: everything below the rows the embedded JPEG/G4 stream actually encodes, up to ImageWidth × RowsPerStrip × SamplesPerPixel bytes per strip and tens of MB per image within the default MAX_IMAGE_PIXELS. load() raises nothing, so the application has no signal that the image is malformed. What comes back depends on allocator state; in a long-running web worker it is typically recently freed request bodies, other users' decoded image buffers and Python object contents. There is no memory corruption; this is a read of uninitialised (previously used) heap memory, analogous in effect to an out-of-bounds read that lands