CVE-2025-55298: 
C# vulnerability analysis and mitigation

ImageMagick, a free and open-source software used for editing and manipulating digital images, was found to contain a format string bug vulnerability (CVE-2025-55298) in the InterpretImageFilename function. The vulnerability was discovered on August 26, 2025, affecting versions prior to 6.9.13-28 and 7.1.2-2. The issue occurs when user input is directly passed to FormatLocaleString without proper sanitization (GitHub Advisory).

The vulnerability exists in the InterpretImageFilename function where user input containing format specifiers is directly passed to FormatLocaleString without proper validation. This allows attackers to manipulate format string parameters, potentially leading to arbitrary memory write operations. The vulnerability has received a CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.8 HIGH (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) from NVD, while GitHub assessed it with a score of 7.5 HIGH (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) (NVD).

The vulnerability enables attackers to achieve complete system compromise through arbitrary memory read/write operations and remote code execution. Successful exploitation can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive data stored in process memory, overwriting of critical system structures, and execution of arbitrary code with ImageMagick's privileges. This is particularly dangerous in web applications processing user-uploaded images and automated image processing systems (GitHub Advisory).

The vulnerability has been patched in ImageMagick versions 6.9.13-28 and 7.1.2-2. Users are strongly advised to upgrade to these or later versions. As a temporary workaround, users can prevent unintended interpretation of filenames as format strings by explicitly defining the filename as a literal using the directive '-define filename:literal=true' from the command line or 'filename:literal' in wrappers (GitHub Advisory, Magick.NET).