Denial of service vulnerabilities in elfutils

Published: 2018-10-25

Risk	Low
Patch available	YES
Number of vulnerabilities	2
CVE-ID	CVE-2018-18521 CVE-2018-18520
CWE-ID	CWE-369 CWE-476
Exploitation vector	Network
Public exploit	Public exploit code for vulnerability #1 is available. Public exploit code for vulnerability #2 is available.
Vulnerable software Subscribe	elfutils Server applications / File servers (FTP/HTTP)
Vendor	Sourceware

Security Bulletin

This security bulletin contains information about 2 vulnerabilities.

1) Divide by zero

EUVDB-ID: #VU15527

Risk: Low

CVSSv3.1: 5.9 [CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H/E:P/RL:O/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2018-18521

CWE-ID: CWE-369 - Divide By Zero

Exploit availability: No

Description

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

The vulnerability exists due to due to improper handling of Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) files by the arlib_add_symbols function, as defined in the arlib.c source code file. A remote attacker can trick the victim into opening a specially crafted ELF file that submits malicious input, trigger a divide-by-zero condition and cause application to crash.

Mitigation

Install updates from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

elfutils: 0.174

External links

http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=23786
http://sourceware.org/ml/elfutils-devel/2018-q4/msg00055.html

Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

Yes. This vulnerability can be exploited by a remote non-authenticated attacker via the Internet.

How the attacker can exploit this vulnerability?

The attacker would have to send a specially crafted request to the affected application in order to exploit this vulnerability.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability. However, proof of concept for this vulnerability is available.

2) Null pointer dereference

EUVDB-ID: #VU15528