CVE-2016-3715 — ImageMagick Arbitrary File Deletion Vulnerability
Overview
ImageMagick contains an unspecified vulnerability that could allow users to delete files by using ImageMagick's 'ephemeral' pseudo protocol, which deletes files after reading.
Vulnerability details
- CVE ID
- CVE-2016-3715
- Vulnerability
- ImageMagick Arbitrary File Deletion Vulnerability
- Vendor
- ImageMagick
- Affected products
- ImageMagick: ImageMagick
- Severity
- HIGH
- Exploitation status
- Actively exploited in the wild (CISA KEV)
- Published
- 2021-11-03
Remediation guidance
CVE-2016-3715 is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog — U.S. federal civilian agencies are required to remediate it under Binding Operational Directive 22-01. Treat it as a priority for every environment.
Apply the vendor's official security update for ImageMagick the affected product as soon as possible. Where a patch is unavailable, apply vendor mitigations or isolate/segment exposed systems.
Hunt for indicators of compromise tied to this vulnerability and confirm logging/EDR coverage on affected assets.
Authoritative references
Remediate CVE-2016-3715 — and stay ahead of the next one
CVE-2016-3715 is listed in the CISA KEV catalog as actively exploited — treat remediation as urgent. Scan your domain free to see whether CVE-2016-3715 and other ImageMagick issues affect you and get a prioritized remediation report (full report from ₹999) — or stream the full feed of 1,600+ actively-exploited CVEs straight into your SOC.
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