Description

Pillow: FontFile.compile(): Image.new() called without _decompression_bomb_check()

Description

PIL/FontFile.py FontFile.compile() assembles per-glyph images into a single combined bitmap using Image.new("1", (xsize, ysize)) without calling Image._decompression_bomb_check(). This is the base-class method shared by both BdfFontFile and PcfFontFile, and it is triggered whenever a loaded font is converted to an ImageFont or saved.

Neither BdfFontFile.BdfFontFile(fp) nor PcfFontFile.PcfFontFile(fp) is registered with Image.register_open(), so Pillow's standard decompression bomb guard never fires for font objects. The compile step is the final opportunity to check the combined allocation — and it has no check.

Vulnerable code (PIL/FontFile.py lines ~64–92):

def compile(self) -> None:
    if self.bitmap:
        return

    h = w = maxwidth = 0
    lines = 1
    for glyph in self.glyph:              # up to 256 glyph slots
        if glyph:...
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"Slow accumulation" attack — per-glyph dimensions stay BELOW warning threshold:

With PCF-maximum glyph height (65,535):

Steps to reproduce

Proof of Concept script:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""
PoC: FontFile.compile() bomb bypass
256 glyphs at 800x875 each (individually below warning threshold)
→ compile() creates 800x224000 = 179.2M px bitmap with NO bomb check
"""
from PIL import FontFile, Image
...
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Expected output:

[OK] bomb check WOULD block (800, 224000): Image size (179200000 pixels) exceeds limit
of 178956970 pixels, could be decompression bomb DOS attack.
[BYPASS] compile() succeeded: bitmap=(800, 224000)
         pixels=179,200,000  (1.001× DecompressionBombError threshold)
         No DecompressionBombError raised at any point.

Verified live on Pillow 12.2.0 — compile() succeeds with no exception.

Real-world trigger using BDF font file:

from PIL import BdfFontFile
import io

# compile() combined: 800 × 16,776,960 = 13.4B px — 75× error threshold
font = BdfFontFile.BdfFontFile(open("crafted_256glyph.bdf", "rb"))
font.to_imagefont()   # → compile() → ~1.6 GB allocation, NO bomb check

Attack scenarios:

Impact

Availability: HIGH — compile() creates a combined bitmap whose pixel count scales as WIDTH × lines × max_glyph_height with no upper bound check. With max PCF glyph height (65,535) and 256 glyphs, the combined allocation is ~1.6 GB. With BDF (text-format, unbounded height), the allocation is limited only by system memory.

Confidentiality: None

Integrity: None

Affected call paths:

BdfFontFile.BdfFontFile(fp).to_imagefont() → FontFile.compile()

BdfFontFile.BdfFontFile(fp).save(filename) → FontFile.compile()

PcfFontFile.PcfFontFile(fp).to_imagefont() → FontFile.compile()

PcfFontFile.PcfFontFile(fp).save(filename) → FontFile.compile()

Neither BdfFontFile nor PcfFontFile is loaded via Image.open(), so the standard decompression bomb guard is entirely absent from the font loading code path. compile() is the only point where the combined allocation size is known, and it has no check.

Confirmed unpatched on python-pillow/Pillow main branch as of 2026-06-08.

Mitigation

Aliases

References