CVE-2024-36613

What it actually does

Integer overflow in the DXA demuxer within libavformat allows crafted input to trigger memory corruption, denial of service, or other undefined behavior during media file parsing.

Why it matters to the business

Applications that process user-supplied or untrusted media files may crash or behave unpredictably, interrupting video workflows, transcoding pipelines, and content ingestion services until the library is updated.

How an attack unfolds

An attacker supplies a specially crafted DXA file containing values that cause an integer overflow during demuxer initialization; when FFmpeg parses the file the overflow leads to invalid memory access or an abort, resulting in process termination or undefined behavior.

How to fix it

Upgrade FFmpeg to the commit 50d8e4f27398fd5778485a827d7a2817921f8540 or later; rebuild any dependent packages and restart affected services. Where immediate patching is not possible, disable DXA demuxer support or apply input sanitization before passing files to FFmpeg.

How to confirm the fix worked

Confirm the running FFmpeg binary or library reports a version containing commit 50d8e4f27398fd5778485a827d7a2817921f8540; re-test parsing of known-good and boundary-case DXA files to verify absence of crashes.

Typical attack path

1. Attacker generates a malicious DXA container with oversized or malformed header fields.
2. Victim application or service invokes FFmpeg (directly or via library) to open or probe the file.
3. DXA demuxer performs arithmetic that overflows, corrupting internal state.
4. Process crashes or enters undefined execution, achieving denial of service.

How to detect it

Review application and system logs for FFmpeg crashes or aborts while processing files with .dxa extension; correlate with file-upload or ingestion events and inspect any core dumps or stack traces referencing the DXA demuxer.

What your security team should do

• Prioritize update of FFmpeg in all media-processing pipelines within the next maintenance window.
• Add FFmpeg version checks to software bill-of-materials and dependency scanners.
• Restrict processing of untrusted DXA or legacy media formats until patched.
• Monitor for application crashes correlated with media file ingestion.