#VU36558 Resource exhaustion in Binutils - CVE-2018-17985

Vulnerability identifier: #VU36558

Vulnerability risk: Medium

CVSSv4.0: 4.6 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Green]

CVE-ID: CVE-2018-17985

CWE-ID: CWE-400

Exploitation vector: Network

Exploit availability: No

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

Vendor: GNU

Description

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

An issue was discovered in cp-demangle.c in GNU libiberty, as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.31. There is a stack consumption problem caused by the cplus_demangle_type function making recursive calls to itself in certain scenarios involving many 'P' characters.

Mitigation
Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Binutils: 2.31

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External links
https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-10/msg00072.html
https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-11/msg00008.html
https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=87335
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4326-1/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4336-1/

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Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

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

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.