GHSA-5h2q-4hrp-v9rr CVE-2012-3444 PYSEC-2012-4

Django vulnerable to Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

High PyPI

Severity: 0.0 / 10; High · CVSS 4.0
Exploit chance (EPSS): 1.79%; Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 78.34% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited: No; Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness: CWE-119 Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer
Fix: 1.3.2; Upgrade django to this version or later

Description

The get_image_dimensions function in the image-handling functionality in Django before 1.3.2 and 1.4.x before 1.4.1 uses a constant chunk size in all attempts to determine dimensions, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (process or thread consumption) via a large TIFF image.

Affected versions

PyPI

Package	Vulnerable	Fixed in
django	`< 1.3.2`	`1.3.2`
django	`>= 1.4, < 1.4.1`	`1.4.1`
django	`< 1.3.2` `>= 1.4, < 1.4.1`	`1.3.2` `1.4.1`

How to fix

Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.

django PyPI → `1.3.2`

pip

pip install --upgrade "django>=1.3.2"

poetry

poetry add "django>=1.3.2"

uv

uv add "django>=1.3.2"

Severity breakdown

CVSS 4.0 0.0

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Attack vector: Network
Attack complexity: Low
Attack requirements: None
Privileges required: None
User interaction: None
Confidentiality (vulnerable system): None
Integrity (vulnerable system): None
Availability (vulnerable system): High
Confidentiality (subsequent systems): None
Integrity (subsequent systems): None
Availability (subsequent systems): None

CVSS 3.1 7.5

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack vector: Network
Attack complexity: Low
Privileges required: None
User interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Weakness

CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it reads from or writes to a memory location outside the buffer's intended boundary. This may result in read or write operations on unexpected memory locations that could be linked to other variables, data structures, or internal program data.

How to prevent it

Requirements: Use a language that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid. For example, many languages that perform their own memory management, such as Java and Perl, are not subject to buffer overflows. Other languages, such as Ada and C#, typically provide overflow protection, but the protection can be disabled by the programmer. Be wary that a language's interface to native code may still be subject to overflows, even if the language itself is theoretically safe.
Architecture and Design: Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid. Examples include the Safe C String Library (SafeStr) by Messier and Viega [REF-57], and the Strsafe.h library from Microsoft [REF-56]. These libraries provide safer versions of overflow-prone string-handling functions.
Operation, Build and Compilation: Use automatic buffer overflow detection mechanisms that are offered by certain compilers or compiler extensions. Examples include: the Microsoft Visual Studio /GS flag, Fedora/Red Hat FORTIFY_SOURCE GCC flag, StackGuard, and ProPolice, which provide various mechanisms including canary-based detection and range/index checking. D3-SFCV (Stack Frame Canary Validation) from D3FEND [REF-1334] discusses canary-based detection in detail.
Implementation: Consider adhering to the following rules when allocating and managing an application's memory: Double check that the buffer is as large as specified. When using functions that accept a number of bytes to copy, such as strncpy(), be aware that if the destination buffer size is equal to the source buffer size, it may not NULL-terminate the string. Check buffer boundaries if accessing the buffer in a loop and make sure there is no danger of writing past the allocated space. If necessary, truncate all input strings to a reasonable length before passing them to the copy and concatenation functions.
Operation, Build and Compilation: Run or compile the software using features or extensions that randomly arrange the positions of a program's executable and libraries in memory. Because this makes the addresses unpredictable, it can prevent an attacker from reliably jumping to exploitable code. Examples include Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) [REF-58] [REF-60] and Position-Independent Executables (PIE) [REF-64]. Imported modules may be similarly realigned if their default memory addresses conflict with other modules, in a process known as "rebasing" (for Windows) and "prelinking" (for Linux) [REF-1332] using randomly generated addresses. ASLR for libraries cannot be used in conjunction with prelink since it would require relocating the libraries at run-time, defeating the whole purpose of prelinking. For more information on these techniques see D3-SAOR (Segment Address Offset Randomization) from D3FEND [REF-1335].
Operation: Use a CPU and operating system that offers Data Execution Protection (using hardware NX or XD bits) or the equivalent techniques that simulate this feature in software, such as PaX [REF-60] [REF-61]. These techniques ensure that any instruction executed is exclusively at a memory address that is part of the code segment. For more information on these techniques see D3-PSEP (Process Segment Execution Prevention) from D3FEND [REF-1336].
Implementation: Replace unbounded copy functions with analogous functions that support length arguments, such as strcpy with strncpy. Create these if they are not available.

References

Advisories

Write-ups

djangoproject.com/weblog/2012/jul/30/security-releases-issued

Packages

github.com/django/django

Timeline

Jul 31, 2012 Published
Jun 10, 2026 Last updated by the source
Oct 31, 2026 Latest EPSS score

Advisory	Severity	Why it's related
GHSA-q238-5cxm-5c9h Django GeoDjango vulnerable to denial of service through deeply nested geometry collections	Medium	Also affects django
GHSA-wvqv-fj8w-qmhm Django GeoDjango spatial lookups allow file writes and outbound requests through GDAL raster parsing	High	Also affects django
GHSA-8qcx-xf44-272x Django: DomainNameValidator permits newline characters that may enable HTTP header injection	Medium	Also affects django
GHSA-crhf-3pfg-w68w Django: GDALRaster may over-read heap memory when constructed from bytes	Medium	Also affects django
GHSA-3h9f-r86x-qvjx Django: cache middleware may expose private responses when unrelated request cookies are present	Medium	Also affects django
GHSA-8cjm-8mp7-r2xf Django: UpdateCacheMiddleware may disclose cached responses due to case-sensitive Cache-Control handling	Medium	Also affects django
GHSA-mm6v-q8q9-pgcf Django fails to prevent reuse of a partially-initialized connection after a failed `STARTTLS` handshake	Low	Also affects django
GHSA-h7pc-vwp9-298g Django: signed cookies are vulnerable to salt namespace collisions	Medium	Also affects django

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