CVE-2018-12699

Description

From CVE.org

finish_stab in stabs.c in GNU Binutils 2.30 allows attackers to cause a denial of service (heap-based buffer overflow) or possibly have unspecified other impact, as demonstrated by an out-of-bounds write of 8 bytes. This can occur during execution of objdump.

Statement

This is a vulnerability affecting binutils, a suite of tools for managing binaries on a linux system; as these tools are used by developers in compilation and debugging, the expected use case is a local user examining object files on a local filesystem, or using ssh to log in. Because of differences in how upstream sources and other vendors provide these utilities, other sources might report the impact of this flaw differently. However, while it is possible for specifically-crafted input to crash binutils via this flaw, Red Hat does not assess that it represents a significant security impact.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score09.8N/A
Attack VectorLocalNetworkN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredLowNoneN/A
User InteractionNoneNoneN/A
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedN/A
ConfidentialityNoneHighN/A
Integrity ImpactNoneHighN/A
Availability ImpactNoneHighN/A

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:N

NVD: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory)

Buffer overflows generally lead to crashes. Other attacks leading to lack of availability are possible, including putting the program into an infinite loop.

Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability,Access Control

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; Bypass Protection Mechanism; Modify Memory

Buffer overflows often can be used to execute arbitrary code, which is usually outside the scope of a program's implicit security policy. Besides important user data, heap-based overflows can be used to overwrite function pointers that may be living in memory, pointing it to the attacker's code. Even in applications that do not explicitly use function pointers, the run-time will usually leave many in memory. For example, object methods in C++ are generally implemented using function pointers. Even in C programs, there is often a global offset table used by the underlying runtime.

Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability,Access Control,Other

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; Bypass Protection Mechanism; Other

When the consequence is arbitrary code execution, this can often be used to subvert any other security service.

Frequently Asked Questions

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