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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2017-15996 json

elfcomm.c in readelf in GNU Binutils 2.29 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (excessive memory allocation) or possibly ha…

published 2017-10-29 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-7412

cvss
7.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.4%
EPSS 2.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 83%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

elfcomm.c in readelf in GNU Binutils 2.29 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (excessive memory allocation) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted ELF file that triggers a "buffer overflow on fuzzed archive header," related to an uninitialized variable, an improper conditional jump, and the get_archive_member_name, process_archive_index_and_symbols, and setup_archive functions.

Patch / fix

  • binutils Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.29.90.20180122-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-15996

  • binutils Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 2.26.1-1ubuntu1~16.04.8+esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-15996

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • binutils SLES 12 SP3, SLES 12 SP2-BCL, SLED 12 SP3 +9 more 2.31-9.26.1
  • cross-ppc-binutils SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP3 2.31-9.26.1
  • cross-spu-binutils SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP3 2.31-9.26.1
  • binutils SLE Module for Development Tools 15, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 2.31-6.3.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2018:3207-2SUSE-SU-2018:3207-1SUSE-SU-2018:3170-1

  • binutils openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.37-1.3

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10651-1

  • binutils Arch Linux 2.30-1

arch linux advisories AVG-435

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2017-15996 updated cvss 3.3

binutils: Excessive memory allocation in elfcomm.c

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 binutils, binutils220 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 binutils Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 binutils
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

2.38% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 83% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 7.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-119 Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.