Adobe Photoshop: Uncontrolled Recursion leads to application denial-of-service
Summary
Adobe Photoshop Desktop for Windows and macOS contains an uncontrolled recursion flaw (CWE-674) that can crash the application. An attacker can cause a denial-of-service condition by providing a malicious file, but the victim must open that file. The issue is rated medium (CVSS 5.5) and affects confidentiality and integrity not at all.
Affected
- Adobe Photoshop 2026: 27.11 and earlier (Windows and macOS)
- Adobe Photoshop 2025: 26.11.8 and earlier (Windows and macOS)
Fixed in
- Adobe Photoshop 2026: update to 27.11.1 or later
- Adobe Photoshop 2027: update to 28.0 or later
- Adobe Photoshop 2025: no further update planned; move to 2026 27.11.1 or 2027 28.0
Workaround
- Unknown. No vendor-published workaround; apply the update.
Exploitation
- Adobe is not aware of any exploits in the wild.
- Not listed as known exploited in CISA KEV.
- No public proof of concept found.
Our recommendation
- Inventory all Photoshop 2025 and 2026 installations.
- Migrate Photoshop 2025 installations to 2026 27.11.1 or 2027 28.0, as 2025 will not receive further updates.
- Update Photoshop 2026 to 27.11.1 or later via the Creative Cloud desktop app or the Admin Console.
- Remind staff not to open unexpected Photoshop files from untrusted sources until updated.
- Patch as part of the November 2026 Adobe update (APSB26-181), which also covers several high-severity code execution issues.
Public exploits
PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit and Exploit-DB list nothing for this CVE.
Research sources
- Adobe Security Bulletin APSB26-181 www.adobe.com
- CVE Record CVE-2026-113578 www.cve.org
- Zero Day Initiative: November 2026 Security Update Review www.zerodayinitiative.com
- Strix AI: CVE-2026-113578 www.strix.ai
Researched and written up in English and German by an AI (Claude by Anthropic) based on NVD, CISA, EPSS and the sources listed. The vendor information is authoritative. Researched on 11 Nov 2026, 16:14.
Original description (NVD)
Photoshop Desktop is affected by an Uncontrolled Recursion vulnerability that could result in an application denial-of-service. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to crash the application, leading to a denial-of-service condition. Exploitation of this issue requires user interaction in that a victim must open a malicious file.
NVD references (1)
Sources
The tracker combines official, freely usable data sources – updated continuously:
- NVD (NIST) – CVEs, rating (CVSS), affected products
- CISA KEV – vulnerabilities confirmed by CISA as actively exploited
- CISA Vulnrichment – CISA assessment (SSVC) in the official CVE record
- FIRST EPSS – probability of exploitation
- Microsoft MSRC – Patch Tuesday: vulnerabilities, severity, updates
- PoC-in-GitHub – public proof-of-concept repositories
- Metasploit (Rapid7) – modules of the Metasploit Framework
- Exploit-DB (OffSec) – archive of public exploits (links only)
- Patch days: official vendor pages (linked per vendor) (Vendor patch days)
This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. EPSS data © FIRST.org.
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