CVE-2022-27943
Description
A flaw was found in binutils, where GNU GCC is vulnerable to a denial of service caused by a stack consumption in the demangle_const() function in libiberty/rust-demangle.c. The vulnerability exists due to the application not properly controlling the consumption of internal resources. By persuading a victim to open a specially-crafted file, an attacker could cause a denial of service.
Statement
The issue is classified as low severity primarily because binutils is not typically exposed to untrusted inputs in most environments, limiting its exploitation potential. The stack overflow in demangle_const() only triggers during the parsing of malformed ELF files, which would require an attacker to convince a user to process a malicious file with it. Moreover, binutils does not handle privileged operations, meaning exploitation is unlikely to lead to system compromise or escalation of privileges. Additionally, the impact is localized to the application itself, without affecting the broader system or network security.
This vulnerability is due to a flaw in libiberty. Neither libgcc nor libstdc++ include the affected code. Consequently, neither of those libraries are affected by this vulnerability.
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).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 5.5 | 5.5 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | Local | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | Low | Low | N/A |
| Privileges Required | None | None | N/A |
| User Interaction | Required | Required | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | Unchanged | N/A |
| Confidentiality | None | None | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | None | N/A |
| Availability Impact | High | High | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)
If an attacker can trigger the allocation of the limited resources, but the number or size of the resources is not controlled, then the most common result is denial of service. This would prevent valid users from accessing the product, and it could potentially have an impact on the surrounding environment, i.e., the product may slow down, crash due to unhandled errors, or lock out legitimate users. For example, a memory exhaustion attack against an application could slow down the application as well as its host operating system.
Access Control,Other
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism; Other
In some cases it may be possible to force the product to "fail open" in the event of resource exhaustion. The state of the product -- and possibly the security functionality - may then be compromised.
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