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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2017-17124 json

The _bfd_coff_read_string_table function in coffgen.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binut…

published 2017-12-04 8 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-8290

cvss
7.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.8%
EPSS 1.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 79%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The _bfd_coff_read_string_table function in coffgen.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.29.1, does not properly validate the size of the external string table, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (excessive memory consumption, or heap-based buffer overflow and application crash) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted COFF binary.

Patch / fix

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

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-17124

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

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-17124

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 Arch Linux 2.30-1

arch linux advisories AVG-538

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-2017-17124 updated cvss 3.3

binutils: Heap buffer overflow in the _bfd_coff_read_string_table function

  • 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

1.84% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 79% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • sourceware.org https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=22507 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

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.