CVE-2018-17985

An issue was discovered in cp-demangle.c in GNU libiberty, as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.31. There is a stack consumption problem caused by the cplus_demangle_type function making recursive calls to itself in certain scenarios involving many P characters.

Weakness

The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:

• The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.

• The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/147.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/227.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/492.html

References

• http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-10/msg00072.html
• http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-11/msg00008.html
• https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=87335
• https://usn.ubuntu.com/4326-1/
• https://usn.ubuntu.com/4336-1/
• http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-10/msg00072.html
• http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-11/msg00008.html
• https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=87335
• https://usn.ubuntu.com/4326-1/
• https://usn.ubuntu.com/4336-1/