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Unrated severityNVD Advisory· Published Feb 18, 2018· Updated Aug 5, 2024

CVE-2018-7208

CVE-2018-7208

Description

A missing index validation in the coff_pointerize_aux function of GNU Binutils 2.30's libbfd can cause a denial of service via a crafted COFF file.

AI Insight

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

A missing index validation in the coff_pointerize_aux function of GNU Binutils 2.30's libbfd can cause a denial of service via a crafted COFF file.

Vulnerability

The vulnerability resides in the coff_pointerize_aux function within coffgen.c of the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library, as distributed in GNU Binutils version 2.30. An index is not properly validated before being used, allowing a specially crafted COFF object file to trigger a segmentation fault when processed by tools such as objcopy [1][3].

Exploitation

An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by crafting a malicious COFF object file and enticing a user to process it with a vulnerable Binutils utility (e.g., objcopy). No authentication or special network position is required; the attack vector is local file processing. The attacker does not need any privileges beyond the ability to supply the file to the user [1][3].

Impact

Successful exploitation leads to a denial of service (segmentation fault) in the affected utility. The security advisory mentions the possibility of other unspecified impacts, but no code execution or information disclosure has been confirmed in available references [1][3].

Mitigation

Red Hat issued an advisory RHSA-2018:3032 to address this vulnerability in Red Hat Enterprise Linux packages [1]. Gentoo provides a GLSA (201811-17) recommending an upgrade to Binutils version 2.30-r2 or later [3]. The fix is included in later releases of GNU Binutils; users should update to a version where the index validation has been corrected. If updating is not possible, avoid processing untrusted COFF files with Binutils tools [3].

References
  1. https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:3032
  2. Multiple vulnerabilities (GLSA 201811-17) — 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

63

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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