CVE-2025-27091

OpenH264 Decoding Functions Heap Overflow Vulnerability

HIGH
7.5
CVSS Score
Published: February 20, 2025 at 05:50 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 09:03 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorOPENH264

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Severity
HIGH7.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.7%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

OpenH264 is a free license codec library which supports H.264 encoding and decoding. A vulnerability in the decoding functions of OpenH264 codec library could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to trigger a heap overflow. This vulnerability is due to a race condition between a Sequence Parameter Set (SPS) memory allocation and a subsequent non Instantaneous Decoder Refresh (non-IDR) Network Abstraction Layer (NAL) unit memory usage. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by crafting a malicious bitstream and tricking a victim user into processing an arbitrary video containing the malicious bistream. An exploit could allow the attacker to cause an unexpected crash in the victim's user decoding client and, possibly, perform arbitrary commands on the victim's host by abusing the heap overflow. This vulnerability affects OpenH264 2.5.0 and earlier releases. Both Scalable Video Coding (SVC) mode and Advanced Video Coding (AVC) mode are affected by this vulnerability. OpenH264 software releases 2.6.0 and later contained the fix for this vulnerability. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability. ### For more information If you have any questions or comments about this advisory: * [Open an issue in cisco/openh264](https://github.com/cisco/openh264/issues) * Email Cisco Open Source Security ([[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])) and Cisco PSIRT ([[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])) ### Credits: * **Research:** Octavian Guzu and Andrew Calvano of Meta * **Fix ideation:** Philipp Hancke and Shyam Sadhwani of Meta * **Fix implementation:** Benzheng Zhang (@BenzhengZhang) * **Release engineering:** Benzheng Zhang (@BenzhengZhang)

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 2.5.1v < 2.6.0
Affected range stops below 2.5.1, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 2.6.0, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitAutomatableTotal impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
HIGH
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
REQUIRED
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
HIGH
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusANALYZED
CWE
CWE-122CWE-787

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