#VU36619 Buffer overflow in Binutils - CVE-2018-17359

Vulnerability identifier: #VU36619

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-2018-17359

CWE-ID: CWE-119

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 the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.31. An invalid memory access exists in bfd_zalloc in opncls.c. Attackers could leverage this vulnerability to cause a denial of service (application crash) via a crafted ELF file.

Mitigation
Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Binutils: 2.31.1

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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://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=23686
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.