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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2019-12972 json

An issue was discovered in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.32.

published 2019-06-26 7 y ago modified 2026-10-08 31 d ago also EUVD-2019-4547

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.8%
EPSS 1.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 78%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

An issue was discovered in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.32. There is a heap-based buffer over-read in _bfd_doprnt in bfd.c because elf_object_p in elfcode.h mishandles an e_shstrndx section of type SHT_GROUP by omitting a trailing '\0' character.

Patch / fix

  • binutils Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.32.51.20190707-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2019-12972

  • binutils Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 2.30-21ubuntu1~18.04.3
  • binutils Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 2.26.1-1ubuntu1~16.04.8+esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2019-12972

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 for SAP 12 SP5, SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES for SAP 12 SP3 +11 more 2.37-9.39.1
  • cross-ppc-binutils SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 2.37-9.39.1
  • cross-spu-binutils SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 2.37-9.39.1
  • binutils SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 2.35.1-6.15.1
  • binutils SLE Module for Package Hub 15 SP2, SLE Module for Package Hub 15 SP1, SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP2 +3 more 2.35-7.11.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2021:3593-1SUSE-SU-2020:3552-1SUSE-SU-2020:3060-1

  • binutils openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.37-1.3
  • binutils openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.35-lp152.4.3.1
  • cross-rx-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.35-lp152.4.3.1
  • cross-arm-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.35-lp152.4.3.1
  • cross-avr-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.35-lp152.4.3.1
  • cross-ppc-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.35-lp152.4.3.1
  • cross-spu-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.35-lp152.4.3.1
  • cross-hppa-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.35-lp152.4.3.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10651-1openSUSE-SU-2020:1804-1openSUSE-SU-2020:1790-1

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-2019-12972 updated cvss 5.5

binutils: out-of-bounds read in setup_group in bfd/elf.c

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 binutils, binutils220 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 binutils
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 binutils Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 binutils, gcc-toolset-9-binutils
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”

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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
31 d ago

Exploit prediction

1.80% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 78% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • sourceware.org https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=24689 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Classification

Weakness

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.