How widely exploitable is this vulnerability in practice?

Exploitability depends on how the host application uses iccDEV and whether an attacker can reliably provide ICC profiles. In scenarios where untrusted files or images are processed automatically, this vulnerability can be reachable and may be exploited to achieve code execution, though that typically requires careful heap grooming and environment-specific techniques.

Does exploitation require authenticated access or local privileges?

Not necessarily. If a service or application automatically parses ICC profiles from user-supplied files (such as uploaded images), an attacker may be able to trigger the vulnerability remotely without prior authentication, depending on the application's access controls. In desktop applications, exploitation often occurs when a user opens a malicious file.

What is the safest general fix pattern for developers?

The safest approach is to enforce strict bounds checking whenever copying or decoding data from ICC profiles into heap buffers, and to centralize buffer management. This means validating all length fields, using safe copy/concatenation helpers that require explicit buffer sizes, and rejecting or truncating any profile data that does not fit within allocated buffers.

Severity:

HIGH RISK

(8.8)

Heap Buffer Overflow (CWE-787) in iccDEV CIccLocalizedUnicode::GetText()

CVE-2026-21679

Published:

Jan 7, 2026

Status:

Analyzed

Summary

Affected Context

Exploit Preconditions

Why This Happens

Potential Impact

General Mitigation Guidance

How Teams Detect Issues Like This

Frequently Asked Questions

Source

NDV

Recent Vulnerabilities

CWE-306

CRITICAL RISK

CRITICAL

(9.8)

Missing Authentication for Forgot-Password Email Change API (CWE-306)

Account Takeover / Loss of Account Control

February 17, 2026

CWE-77;CWE-78

HIGH RISK

HIGH

(7.3)

OS Command Injection (CWE-78) in node-sonos-http-api TTS Provider for macOS

Remote Code Execution on the Server Host

February 17, 2026

Vulnerability Type

Category:

Memory Corruption / Heap Buffer Overflow

CWE:

CWE-20;CWE-787

Impact:

Potential Remote Code Execution and Denial of Service

Severity:

HIGH RISK

(8.8)

CVSS Version:

3.1

Vulnerability Type

Category:

Memory Corruption / Heap Buffer Overflow

CWE:

CWE-20;CWE-787

Impact:

Potential Remote Code Execution and Denial of Service

Severity:

HIGH RISK

(8.8)

CVSS Version:

3.1

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Ask AI for summary of CodeAnt

Heap Buffer Overflow (CWE-787) in iccDEV CIccLocalizedUnicode::GetText()

Summary

Affected Context

Exploit Preconditions

Why This Happens

Potential Impact

General Mitigation Guidance

How Teams Detect Issues Like This

Frequently Asked Questions

Source

Recent Vulnerabilities

CRITICAL RISK

CRITICAL

(9.8)

Missing Authentication for Forgot-Password Email Change API (CWE-306)

HIGH RISK

HIGH

(7.3)

OS Command Injection (CWE-78) in node-sonos-http-api TTS Provider for macOS

Vulnerability Type

Vulnerability Type

Vulnerability Type

Vulnerability Type

Catch This CVE While Code Is Being Written

Ship clean & secure code faster

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