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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2018-18309 json

An issue was discovered in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.31.

published 2018-10-15 8 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2018-10042

cvss
5.5
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 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 2.31. An invalid memory address dereference was discovered in read_reloc in reloc.c. The vulnerability causes a segmentation fault and application crash, which leads to denial of service, as demonstrated by objdump, because of missing _bfd_clear_contents bounds checking.

Patch / fix

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

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2018-18309

  • 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-2018-18309

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 SLE Module for Package Hub 15, SLE Module for Development Tools 15, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 2.32-6.8.1
  • binutils SLE Module for Package Hub 15 SP1, SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP1, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP1 2.32-7.5.1
  • binutils SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES for SAP 12 SP3 +18 more 2.32-9.33.1
  • cross-ppc-binutils SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5, SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP4 2.32-9.33.1
  • cross-spu-binutils SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5, SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP4 2.32-9.33.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2019:2780-1SUSE-SU-2019:2779-1SUSE-SU-2019:2650-1

  • binutils openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.37-1.3
  • binutils openSUSE Leap 15.1 2.32-lp151.3.3.1
  • cross-rx-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.1 2.32-lp151.3.3.1
  • cross-arm-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.1 2.32-lp151.3.3.1
  • cross-avr-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.1 2.32-lp151.3.3.1
  • cross-ppc-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.1 2.32-lp151.3.3.1
  • cross-spu-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.1 2.32-lp151.3.3.1
  • cross-hppa-binutils openSUSE Leap 15.1 2.32-lp151.3.3.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10651-1openSUSE-SU-2019:2432-1openSUSE-SU-2019:2415-1

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-2018-18309 updated cvss 3.3

binutils: invalid memory address dereference in read_reloc in reloc.c

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 binutils, mingw-binutils, mingw32-binutils, mingw64-binutils, mingw-binutils-generic
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 binutils, binutils220 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 binutils Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 binutils Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise 3 binutils
    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

1.82% 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=23770 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 5.5 CVSS:3.0/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
  • 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.