CVE-2026-112258

A flaw was found in GIMP. The XCF loader can leave a dangling pointer in the linked-channels list when a linked channel is later destroyed via a selection property. Opening a crafted XCF file can cause a use-after-free in the main GIMP process, leading to a crash and potentially arbitrary code execution.

Red Hat rates this vulnerability as Important severity because successful exploitation allows arbitrary code execution in the security context of the user running the application. Although GIMP is an interactive desktop utility and does not listen on network sockets, memory corruption during project parsing enables an attacker to hijack program control. The severity is constrained by the necessity of user interaction, as an attacker must trick a target into opening a malicious XCF file.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.

Avoid opening untrusted XCF files in GIMP until an update is available. If GIMP is unused, remove the gimp package.