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Unrated severityNVD Advisory· Published Jan 26, 2018· Updated Aug 5, 2024

CVE-2018-6323

CVE-2018-6323

Description

An unsigned integer overflow in BFD's elf_object_p function in GNU Binutils 2.29.1 and earlier allows denial of service via a crafted ELF file without authentication.

AI Insight

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

An unsigned integer overflow in BFD's elf_object_p function in GNU Binutils 2.29.1 and earlier allows denial of service via a crafted ELF file without authentication.

Vulnerability

The elf_object_p function in elfcode.h of the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (libbfd), distributed in GNU Binutils 2.29.1 and earlier, contains an unsigned integer overflow vulnerability. The issue arises because bfd_size_type multiplication is not used when calculating sizes for ELF section headers or program headers, allowing an attacker to craft an ELF file that triggers the overflow upon parsing. Versions up to and including 2.29.1 are affected, with the proof of concept demonstrating the crash on Binutils 2.26.1 [1].

Exploitation

An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by providing a specially crafted ELF file to a tool that uses the BFD library, such as objdump. No authentication or network access is required; the attack is executed locally by running objdump -x on the malicious file. The proof of concept modifies a compiled ELF object's section headers to set the number of program headers to 65535 and the offset to a large value (e.g., 536870912), causing an integer overflow when the library calculates memory sizes [1].

Impact

Successful exploitation causes a denial of service (application crash) when the BFD library processes the malformed ELF file. The official description also notes the possibility of "unspecified other impact," but no concrete code execution or information disclosure has been demonstrated in available references. The crash affects utilities like objdump, readelf, or any program linked against libbfd [1].

Mitigation

The vulnerability was patched in GNU Binutils version 2.30, released in February 2018. Users should update to Binutils 2.30 or later. There is no known workaround for earlier versions other than avoiding the use of objdump or other BFD-based tools on untrusted ELF files. The CVE is not listed in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.

References
  1. OffSec’s Exploit Database Archive

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

44

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

5

News mentions

0

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