Описание
Denial of service via non-terminating SYLT frame parsing loop in tinytag
Summary
tinytag 2.2.0 allows an attacker who can supply MP3 files for parsing to trigger a non-terminating loop while the library parses an ID3v2 SYLT (synchronized lyrics) frame. In server-side deployments that automatically parse attacker-supplied files, a single 498-byte MP3 can cause the parsing operation to stop making progress and remain busy until the worker or process is terminated.
Details
In tag 2.2.0 (6f1d3060f393743c2ec34d07c0855cceed827244), the reachable call path is:
TinyTag.getintinytag/tinytag.py#L144-L154_loadintinytag/tinytag.py#L259-L266_parse_tagand_parse_id3v2intinytag/tinytag.py#L1059-L1092_parse_frameforSYLT/SLTintinytag/tinytag.py#L1316-L1318_parse_synced_lyricsand_find_string_end_posintinytag/tinytag.py#L1219-L1248andtinytag/tinytag.py#L1340-L1352
The root cause is that _parse_synced_lyrics assumes _find_string_end_pos always returns a position greater than the current offset. That assumption is false when no string terminator is present in the remaining frame content.
For single-byte encodings, _find_string_end_pos does:
If no terminator exists, content.find(...) returns -1, so the function returns 0. _parse_synced_lyrics then does offset = end_pos, which resets offset to 0 inside:
Because offset is reset to 0, the loop condition remains true and the parser stops making forward progress. The UTF-16 branch in _find_string_end_pos has the same shape: if no b'\x00\x00' terminator is found, it also returns 0, so the same non-progress condition applies there.
SYLT parsing support was introduced by commit 4d649b9c314ada8ff8a74e0469e9aadb3acb252a (ID3: Make synced lyrics available in 'other.lyrics' (LRC format) (#270)), which first shipped in 2.2.0. I confirmed that 2.1.2 does not contain _parse_synced_lyrics, so 2.2.0 is the only confirmed affected release at this time.
Test environment:
- MacBook Air (Apple M2), macOS
26.3/ Darwinarm64 - Python
3.14.3 - Confirmed affected release:
tinytag 2.2.0(6f1d3060f393743c2ec34d07c0855cceed827244) - Also reproduced on current
maincommit1d23f6fe169c92c070a265f9108e295577141383
PoC
The following self-contained PoC generates a malformed SYLT frame and passes it to TinyTag.get:
Observed output on 2.2.0 in the environment above:
Impact
An attacker who can supply MP3 files for parsing can cause tinytag to enter a non-terminating loop in its own parser. This is a library-level availability issue in the documented parsing path.
In server-side processing of attacker-supplied files, a single request can tie up a worker or process that performs metadata extraction. In local or desktop integrations, opening a malicious file can hang the parsing task until it is interrupted.
Patches
Fixed in the following commits:
Ссылки
- https://github.com/tinytag/tinytag/security/advisories/GHSA-f4rq-2259-hv29
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-32889
- https://github.com/tinytag/tinytag/commit/44e496310f7ced8077e9087e3774acbaa324b18a
- https://github.com/tinytag/tinytag/commit/4d649b9c314ada8ff8a74e0469e9aadb3acb252a
- https://github.com/tinytag/tinytag/commit/5cd321521ff097e41724b601d7e3d7adc7e53402
Пакеты
tinytag
<= 2.2.0
2.2.1
Связанные уязвимости
tinytag is a Python library for reading audio file metadata. Version 2.2.0 allows an attacker who can supply MP3 files for parsing to trigger a non-terminating loop while the library parses an ID3v2 SYLT (synchronized lyrics) frame. In server-side deployments that automatically parse attacker-supplied files, a single 498-byte MP3 can cause the parsing operation to stop making progress and remain busy until the worker or process is terminated. The root cause is that _parse_synced_lyrics assumes _find_string_end_pos always returns a position greater than the current offset. That assumption is false when no string terminator is present in the remaining frame content. This issue has been fixed in version 2.2.1.
tinytag is a Python library for reading audio file metadata. Version 2.2.0 allows an attacker who can supply MP3 files for parsing to trigger a non-terminating loop while the library parses an ID3v2 SYLT (synchronized lyrics) frame. In server-side deployments that automatically parse attacker-supplied files, a single 498-byte MP3 can cause the parsing operation to stop making progress and remain busy until the worker or process is terminated. The root cause is that _parse_synced_lyrics assumes _find_string_end_pos always returns a position greater than the current offset. That assumption is false when no string terminator is present in the remaining frame content. This issue has been fixed in version 2.2.1.