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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2018-20002 json

The _bfd_generic_read_minisymbols function in syms.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binuti…

published 2018-12-10 7 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2018-12580

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

The _bfd_generic_read_minisymbols function in syms.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.31, has a memory leak via a crafted ELF file, leading to a denial of service (memory consumption), as demonstrated by nm.

Patch / fix

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

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2018-20002

  • 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-2018-20002

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 Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +12 more 2.32-r0
  • binutils-avr Alpine 3.12, Alpine 3.11 2.32-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2018-20002

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • binutils Arch Linux 2.32-1

arch linux advisories AVG-832

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-2018-20002 updated cvss 3.3

binutils: memory leak in _bfd_generic_read_minisymbols function in syms.c

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 binutils, binutils220 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 binutils Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 binutils Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 binutils, mingw-binutils, mingw32-binutils, mingw64-binutils, mingw-binutils-generic
    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

1.82% 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=23952 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-772 Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime

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.