sharp: Vulnerabilities in libheif: GHSA-g89c-p67h-r497 and GHSA-2jg2-4ch7-h545

Overview

Impact

A number of vulnerabilities, two rated as "Critical" severity using CVSSv3, have been discovered and fixed in the upstream libheif dependency. These can lead to possible remote code execution (RCE) on glibc-based Linux when run under certain conditions.

The attack vector for these claims to be "network" however sharp does not provide any networking features so this vulnerability is down-rated to a "High" severity using CVSSv4 but please note its Subsequent System Impact.

Those processing untrusted input with versions of sharp prior to 0.35.4 are affected.

Patches

Using prebuilt binaries provided by sharp?

Most people rely on the prebuilt binaries provided by sharp.

Please upgrade sharp to the latest version, currently 0.35.4, which provides libheif 1.23.2.

Using a globally-installed libheif?

Please ensure you are using the latest libheif 1.23.2.

Workarounds

Add the following to your code to prevent sharp from decoding AVIF images.

sharp.block({ operation: ["VipsForeignLoadHeif"] });

Ensure you are using a node executable binary compiled as a Position Independent Executable (PIE). Most Linux package managers already do this for protection against RCE however be warned that the "official" Node.js binaries do not.

References

• CVE-2026-84383
• https://github.com/strukturag/libheif/security/advisories/GHSA-2jg2-4ch7-h545

Affected packages

• sharp < 0.35.4

Remediation

Upgrade to a patched release:

• sharp 0.35.4