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Unrated severityOSV Advisory· Published Jan 1, 2019· Updated Aug 5, 2024

CVE-2018-20651

CVE-2018-20651

Description

A NULL pointer dereference in GNU Binutils 2.31.1's BFD library causes a denial of service via a crafted ELF file lacking program headers.

AI Insight

LLM-synthesized narrative grounded in this CVE's description and references.

A NULL pointer dereference in GNU Binutils 2.31.1's BFD library causes a denial of service via a crafted ELF file lacking program headers.

Vulnerability

A NULL pointer dereference vulnerability exists in the elf_link_add_object_symbols function within elflink.c of the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (libbfd) in GNU Binutils 2.31.1 [1]. The flaw is triggered when processing a crafted ELF file of type ET_DYN that contains no program headers, leading to an invalid memory access [1].

Exploitation

An attacker can remotely cause a denial of service by tricking a user or automated system into processing a specially crafted ELF file using tools that rely on the affected library, such as the ld linker [1][2]. No special privileges or authentication are required beyond the ability to supply the malformed file [1].

Impact

Successful exploitation results in a denial of service, as the NULL pointer dereference causes the application to crash [1]. While the referenced advisories also mention possible arbitrary code execution in other binutils flaws, this specific CVE is limited to a crash (availability impact) [1][2].

Mitigation

Fixed versions have been released: for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, binutils 2.30-21ubuntu1~18.04.3 [1]; for Gentoo, binutils 2.32-r1 [2]. Users should update their binutils packages to the latest available version to mitigate the vulnerability [1][2].

References
  1. USN-4336-1: GNU binutils vulnerabilities | Ubuntu security notices | Ubuntu
  2. Multiple vulnerabilities (GLSA 201908-01) — Gentoo security

AI Insight generated on May 26, 2026. Synthesized from this CVE's description and the cited reference URLs; citations are validated against the source bundle.

Affected products

56

Patches

0

No patches discovered yet.

Vulnerability mechanics

No source-code context for this CVE — mechanics is only generated when we can read the actual fix diff. Without that, the four sections (root cause, attack vector, affected code, fix) would be speculation rather than analysis.

References

7

News mentions

0

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