Researchers use AI to find widespread software decoder flaw
Hacktron researchers, aided by Claude and GPT-5.6 Sol, disclosed HEIF Heist, memory-corruption flaws in libheif/libde265 enabling RCE against major platforms.
Hacktron researchers disclosed HEIF Heist, memory-corruption flaws in the libheif and libde265 image decoders triggered by crafted HEIF, HEIC, and AVIF uploads, enabling remote code execution or heap disclosure across services including Meta's product suite, GitHub Enterprise, Discourse, and OpenAI. By chaining the parser flaw with an SSO misconfiguration, they compromised an OpenAI employee's Codex account and opened a pull request in the company's internal monorepo within a 72-hour attack window. OpenAI paid a $6,500 bug bounty and the flaw was patched within days of its July 25 discovery. The team says frontier models like GPT-5.6 Sol cut exploit development time to 1-3 days, warning deployments lacking latest patches remain potentially vulnerable.
- libheif and libde265 flaws allow RCE or heap disclosure via crafted image files
- Chained attack reached OpenAI employee Codex accounts and the internal monorepo
- OpenAI paid $6,500 bounty; flaw found July 25 and patched within days
- Frontier models cut exploit development from months to roughly 1-3 days
- Unpatched deployments processing HEIF, HEIC, or AVIF uploads remain at risk
- Victims
- OpenAI
- AI models
- GPT-5.6 SolClaude Opus 5
From the original article
4 min read at cyberscoop.com
The bug, since patched, gave attackers remote code execution privileges and access to user accounts and production environments, including Meta’s core product suite and an OpenAI software repository. The post Researchers use AI to find widespread software decoder flaw appeared first on CyberScoop.
By djohnson · cyberscoop.com
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