#VU39339 Out-of-bounds read in Binutils - CVE-2017-7299

Vulnerability identifier: #VU39339

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-2017-7299

CWE-ID: CWE-125

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.

The Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.28, has an invalid read (of size 8) because the code to emit relocs (bfd_elf_final_link function in bfd/elflink.c) does not check the format of the input file before trying to read the ELF reloc section header. The vulnerability leads to a GNU linker (ld) program crash.

Mitigation
Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Binutils: 2.28

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External links
https://www.securityfocus.com/bid/97217
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=20908

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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.