#VU37870 Out-of-bounds read in Binutils - CVE-2017-17080

Vulnerability identifier: #VU37870

Vulnerability risk: Medium

CVSSv4.0: 4 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/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-2017-17080

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

The vulnerability exists due to a boundary error in elf.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.29.1, does not validate sizes of core notes, which. A remote attacker can perform a denial of service (bfd_getl32 heap-based buffer over-read and application crash) via a crafted object file, related to elfcore_grok_netbsd_procinfo, elfcore_grok_openbsd_procinfo, and elfcore_grok_nto_status.

Mitigation
Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Binutils: 2.29.1

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External links
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201811-17
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=22421

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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.