An issue was discovered in the merge_strings function in merge.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.31. There is a NULL pointer dereference in _bfd_add_merge_section when attempting to merge sections with large alignments. A specially crafted ELF allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service, as demonstrated by ld.
Weakness
The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.
Affected Software
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Binutils | Gnu | 2.31 (including) | 2.31 (including) |
| Binutils | Ubuntu | bionic | * |
| Binutils | Ubuntu | cosmic | * |
| Binutils | Ubuntu | esm-infra-legacy/trusty | * |
| Binutils | Ubuntu | esm-infra/bionic | * |
| Binutils | Ubuntu | esm-infra/xenial | * |
| Binutils | Ubuntu | precise/esm | * |
| Binutils | Ubuntu | trusty | * |
| Binutils | Ubuntu | trusty/esm | * |
| Binutils | Ubuntu | xenial | * |
Potential Mitigations
References
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-10/msg00072.html
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-11/msg00008.html
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/105754
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20190307-0003/
- https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=23806
- https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=binutils-gdb.git%3Bh=45a0eaf77022963d639d6d19871dbab7b79703fc
- 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
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/105754
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20190307-0003/
- https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=23806
- https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=binutils-gdb.git%3Bh=45a0eaf77022963d639d6d19871dbab7b79703fc
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4336-1/