#VU39343 Out-of-bounds read in Binutils - CVE-2017-7303

Vulnerability identifier: #VU39343

Vulnerability risk: Medium

CVSSv4.0: 6.6 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Green]

CVE-ID: CVE-2017-7303

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, is vulnerable to an invalid read (of size 4) because of missing a check (in the find_link function) for null headers before attempting to match them. This vulnerability causes Binutils utilities like strip to 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/97213
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=20922

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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.