#VU38170 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in Binutils - CVE-2017-14938

Vulnerability identifier: #VU38170

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-2017-14938

CWE-ID: CWE-770

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.

_bfd_elf_slurp_version_tables in elf.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.29, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (excessive memory allocation and application crash) via a crafted ELF file.

Mitigation
Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Binutils: 2.29

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External links
https://www.securityfocus.com/bid/101212
https://blogs.gentoo.org/ago/2017/09/26/binutils-memory-allocation-failure-in-_bfd_elf_slurp_version_tables-elf-c/
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=22166
https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=binutils-gdb.git;h=bd61e135492ecf624880e6b78e5fcde3c9716df6

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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.