---
id: CVE-2026-27809
aliases:
  - GHSA-24p2-j2jr-386w
  - PYSEC-2026-2262
title: >-
  psd-tools: Compression module has unguarded zlib decompression, missing
  dimension validation, and hardening gaps
summary: >-
  psd-tools: Compression module has unguarded zlib decompression, missing
  dimension validation, and hardening gaps
severity: medium
vendor: psd-tools
product: psd-tools
ecosystem: pip
affected:
  - psd-tools < 1.12.2
patched:
  - psd-tools 1.12.2
published: '2026-02-26'
updated: '2026-07-13'
source: OSV
sourceUrl: 'https://osv.dev/vulnerability/GHSA-24p2-j2jr-386w'
references:
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/psd-tools/psd-tools/security/advisories/GHSA-24p2-j2jr-386w
  - url: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-27809'
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/psd-tools/psd-tools/commit/6c0a78f195b5942757886a1863793fd5946c1fb1
  - url: 'https://github.com/psd-tools/psd-tools'
  - url: 'https://github.com/psd-tools/psd-tools/releases/tag/v1.12.2'
tags:
  - osv
  - pip
epss: 0.0041
epssPercentile: 0.34956
ingestedAt: '2026-07-13T18:57:51.069Z'
---

## Overview

## Summary

A security review of the `psd_tools.compression` module (conducted against the `fix/invalid-rle-compression` branch, commits `7490ffa`–`2a006f5`) identified the following pre-existing issues. The two findings introduced and **fixed** by those commits (Cython buffer overflow, `IndexError` on lone repeat header) are excluded from this report.

---

## Findings

### 1. Unguarded `zlib.decompress` — ZIP bomb / memory exhaustion (Medium)

**Location**: `src/psd_tools/compression/__init__.py`, lines 159 and 162

```python
result = zlib.decompress(data)          # Compression.ZIP
decompressed = zlib.decompress(data)    # Compression.ZIP_WITH_PREDICTION
```

`zlib.decompress` is called without a `max_length` cap. A crafted PSD file containing a ZIP-compressed channel whose compressed payload expands to gigabytes would exhaust process memory before any limit is enforced. The RLE path is not vulnerable to this because the decoder pre-allocates exactly `row_size × height` bytes; the ZIP path has no equivalent ceiling.

**Impact**: Denial-of-service / OOM crash when processing untrusted PSD files.

**Suggested mitigation**: Pass a reasonable `max_length` to `zlib.decompress`, derived from the expected `width * height * depth // 8` byte count already computed in `decompress()`.

---

### 2. No upper-bound validation on image dimensions before allocation (Low)

**Location**: `src/psd_tools/compression/__init__.py`, lines 138 and 193

```python
length = width * height * max(1, depth // 8)   # decompress()
row_size = max(width * depth // 8, 1)           # decode_rle()
```

Neither `width`, `height`, nor `depth` are range-checked before these values drive memory allocation. The PSD format (version 2 / PSB) permits dimensions up to 300,000 × 300,000 pixels; a 4-channel 32-bit image at that size would require ~144 TB to hold. While the OS/Python allocator will reject such a request, there is no early, explicit guard that produces a clean, user-facing error.

**Impact**: Uncontrolled allocation attempt from a malformed or adversarially crafted PSB file; hard crash rather than a recoverable error.

**Suggested mitigation**: Validate `width`, `height`, and `depth` against known PSD/PSB limits before entering decompression, and raise a descriptive `ValueError` early.

---

### 3. `assert` used as a runtime integrity check (Low)

**Location**: `src/psd_tools/compression/__init__.py`, line 170

```python
assert len(result) == length, "len=%d, expected=%d" % (len(result), length)
```

This assertion can be silently disabled by running the interpreter with `-O` (or `-OO`), which strips all `assert` statements. If the assertion ever becomes relevant (e.g., after future refactoring), disabling it would allow a length mismatch to propagate silently into downstream image compositing.

**Impact**: Loss of an integrity guard in optimised deployments.

**Suggested mitigation**: Replace with an explicit `if` + `raise ValueError(...)`.

---

### 4. `cdef int` indices vs. `Py_ssize_t size` type mismatch in Cython decoder (Low)

**Location**: `src/psd_tools/compression/_rle.pyx`, lines 18–20

```cython
cdef int i = 0
cdef int j = 0
cdef int length = data.shape[0]
```

All loop indices are C `signed int` (32-bit). The `size` parameter is `Py_ssize_t` (64-bit on modern platforms). The comparison `j < size` promotes `j` to `Py_ssize_t`, but if `j` wraps due to a row size exceeding `INT_MAX` (~2.1 GB), the resulting comparison is undefined behaviour in C. In practice, row sizes are bounded by PSD/PSB dimension limits and are unreachable at this scale; however, the mismatch is a latent defect if the function is ever called directly with large synthetic inputs.

**Impact**: Theoretical infinite loop or UB at >2 GB row sizes; not reachable from standard PSD/PSB parsing.

**Suggested mitigation**: Change `cdef int i`, `j`, `length` to `cdef Py_ssize_t`.

---

### 5. Silent data degradation not surfaced to callers (Informational)

**Location**: `src/psd_tools/compression/__init__.py`, lines 144–157

The tolerant RLE decoder (introduced in `2a006f5`) replaces malformed channel data with zero-padded (black) pixels and emits a `logger.warning`. This is the correct trade-off over crashing, but the warning is only observable if the caller has configured a log handler. The public `PSDImage` API does not surface channel-level decode failures to the user in any other way.

**Impact**: A user parsing a silently corrupt file gets a visually wrong image with no programmatic signal to check.

**Suggested mitigation**: Consider exposing a per-channel decode-error flag or raising a distinct warning category that users can filter or escalate via the `warnings` module.

---

### 6. `encode()` zero-length return type inconsistency in Cython (Informational)

**Location**: `src/psd_tools/compression/_rle.pyx`, lines 66–67

```cython
if length == 0:
    return data   # returns a memoryview, not an explicit std::string
```

All other return paths return an explicit `cdef string result`. This path returns `data` (a `const unsigned char[:]` memoryview) and relies on Cython's implicit coercion to `bytes`. It is functionally equivalent today but is semantically inconsistent and fragile if Cython's coercion rules change in a future version.

**Impact**: Potential silent breakage in future Cython versions; not a current security issue.

**Suggested mitigation**: Replace `return data` with `return result` (the already-declared empty `string`).

---

## Environment

- Branch: `fix/invalid-rle-compression`
- Reviewed commits: `7490ffa`, `2a006f5`
- Python: 3.x (Cython extension compiled for CPython)

## Affected packages

- `psd-tools < 1.12.2`

## Remediation

Upgrade to a patched release:

- `psd-tools 1.12.2`