Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2021-20294 json

A flaw was found in binutils readelf 2.35 program.

published 2021-04-29 5 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-7719

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
3.3%
EPSS 3.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 88%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A flaw was found in binutils readelf 2.35 program. An attacker who is able to convince a victim using readelf to read a crafted file could trigger a stack buffer overflow, out-of-bounds write of arbitrary data supplied by the attacker. The highest impact of this flaw is to confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Patch / fix

  • gnu binutils 2.35.2
  • binutils Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.35.2-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-20294

  • binutils SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 2.37-6.23.1
  • binutils SLES for SAP 15 SP1, SLES 15 SP1-LTSS, SLES 15 SP1-BCL +9 more 2.37-7.26.1
  • binutils SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES for SAP 12 SP3 +11 more 2.37-9.44.1
  • cross-ppc-binutils SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 2.37-9.44.1
  • cross-spu-binutils SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 2.37-9.44.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2022:0934-1SUSE-SU-2021:3643-1SUSE-SU-2021:3637-1

  • binutils openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.37-3.1
  • binutils openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.37-lp152.4.9.1
  • bpftrace openSUSE Leap 15.2 0.11.4-lp152.2.7.1
  • cross-rx-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.37-lp152.4.9.1
  • cross-arm-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.37-lp152.4.9.1
  • cross-avr-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.37-lp152.4.9.1
  • cross-ppc-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.37-lp152.4.9.1
  • cross-spu-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.37-lp152.4.9.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11634-1openSUSE-SU-2021:1475-1openSUSE-SU-2021:3643-1

  • binutils Arch Linux 2.36-1

arch linux advisories AVG-1385

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-2021-20294 updated cvss 7.0

binutils: stack buffer overflow WRITE may lead to a DoS via a crafted ELF

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 binutils Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 binutils
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 gcc-toolset-9-binutils, gcc-toolset-10-binutils
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 binutils Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 binutils, binutils-gold
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

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

3.28% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 88% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • sourceware.org https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=26929 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/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

Affected products

  • n/a binutils

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.