#VU18958 Out-of-bounds read in Binutils - CVE-2019-12972

Vulnerability identifier: #VU18958

Vulnerability risk: Low

CVSSv4.0: 5.4 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P/U:Clear]

CVE-ID: CVE-2019-12972

CWE-ID: CWE-125

Exploitation vector: Local

Exploit availability: No

Vulnerable software:
Binutils
Universal components / Libraries / Libraries used by multiple products

Vendor: GNU

Description

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

The vulnerability exists due to heap-based buffer over-read condition within the "_bfd_doprnt" function in the "bfd.c" file in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library. A local attacker can pass a malformed ELF binary to the affected application and perform a denial of service attack.

Mitigation
Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Binutils: 2.32

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External links
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=24689
https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=binutils-gdb.git;h=890f750a3b053532a4b839a2dd6243076de12031

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Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

No. This vulnerability can be exploited locally. The attacker should have authentication credentials and successfully authenticate on the system.

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.