Packages / next / Security

ModerateVulnerabilityGHSA-3x4c-7xq6-9pq8CVE-2026-27980Published 17 Mar 2026

Next.js: Unbounded next/image disk cache growth can exhaust storage

Affected releases · next

  • 16.x16.0.0 – 16.1.6Fixed in 16.1.7
  • 15.x15.0.0 – 15.5.13Fixed in 15.5.14
  • 14.x14.0.0 – 14.2.35No fix on this line yet
  • 13.x and older10.0.0 – 13.5.11No fix, no longer updated

On 16.x, the newest line:

npm install next@16.1.7
16.x

  1. Affected

    16.0.0 – 16.1.6

    19 releases

  2. Fixed

    16.1.7 – 16.4.2

    26 releases, latest

15.x

  1. Affected

    15.0.0 – 15.5.13

    68 releases

  2. Fixed

    15.5.14 – 15.5.28

    14 releases

14.x

  1. Affected

    14.0.0 – 14.2.35

    46 releases

13.x

  1. Affected

    13.0.0 – 13.5.11

    56 releases

12.x

  1. Affected

    12.0.0 – 12.3.7

    33 releases

11.x

  1. Affected

    11.0.0 – 11.1.4

    7 releases

10.x

  1. Affected

    10.0.0 – 10.2.3

    18 releases

423 stable releases of next, oldest to newest, one row per major.

Is your project affected?

Paste your package.json, or type the range you declare for next. It is read in your browser and sent nowhere.

What happens

Summary

The default Next.js image optimization disk cache (/_next/image) did not have a configurable upper bound, allowing unbounded cache growth.

Impact

An attacker could generate many unique image-optimization variants and exhaust disk space, causing denial of service. Note that this does not impact platforms that have their own image optimization capabilities, such as Vercel.

Patches

Fixed by adding an LRU-backed disk cache with images.maximumDiskCacheSize, including eviction of least-recently-used entries when the limit is exceeded. Setting maximumDiskCacheSize: 0 disables disk caching.

Workarounds

If upgrade is not immediately possible:

  • Periodically clean .next/cache/images.

  • Reduce variant cardinality (e.g., tighten values for images.localPatterns, images.remotePatterns, and images.qualities)