---
title: "CVE-2026-96640: Pillow - Denial of Service"
description: "Pillow 5.1.0 to 13.0.0 contains a denial of service caused by improper handling of duplicate indirect references in PDF /Pages graph in PdfParser.linearize_page_tree(), letting attackers cause excessive CPU consumption by crafting malformed PDFs, exploit requires attacker-controlled PDF input."
url: https://panop.io/threat-heartbeat/CVE-2026-96640/
---

# CVE-2026-96640 Pillow - Denial of Service

Pillow 5.1.0 to 13.0.0 contains a denial of service caused by improper handling of duplicate indirect references in PDF /Pages graph in PdfParser.linearize\_page\_tree(), letting attackers cause excessive CPU consumption by crafting malformed PDFs, exploit requires attacker-controlled PDF input.

CVSS base score 8.2 /10

High

CISA KEV

Not listed

Public exploit

None known

Authentication

Not required

[View the NVD record ↗](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-96640)

## Details

Type

Denial of Service

Impact

Denial Of Service

CVSS vector

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Published

21 October 2026

Updated

22 October 2026

Weakness

[CWE-400](https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/400.html)

## Vendor fix

Update to version 13.0.0 or later.

Patching closes this CVE. It does not tell you which of your systems run the affected version, or what else is exposed alongside them.

## References

- [https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-96640](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-96640)
- [https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/commit/6f0e7ee1f9c2fe227906f8a4b926e6622b702bc7](https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/commit/6f0e7ee1f9c2fe227906f8a4b926e6622b702bc7)
- [https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/pull/10093](https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/pull/10093)
- [https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/releases/tag/13.0.0](https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/releases/tag/13.0.0)
- [https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/security/advisories/GHSA-mrfp-p49p-3hf2](https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/security/advisories/GHSA-mrfp-p49p-3hf2)

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## What this record can't tell you

- Whether you run the affected software, and where
- Whether an attacker can actually reach and exploit it
- The misconfigurations that never get a CVE number
- What it would cost the business, ranked into what to fix first

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