CVE-2020-35494

Public on

Last Modified: UTC

Description

A flaw was found in binutils. An attacker who is able to submit a crafted input file to be processed by binutils could cause usage of uninitialized memory. The highest threat is to application availability with a lower threat to data confidentiality.

A flaw was found in binutils. An attacker who is able to submit a crafted input file to be processed by binutils could cause usage of uninitialized memory. The highest threat is to application availability with a lower threat to data confidentiality.

Statement

This issue is classified with a low severity primarily because binutils is not typically exposed to untrusted inputs in most environments, limiting the possibility of exploitation. Additionally, this segmentation fault due to uninitialized data in the heap is only triggered during the parsing of a specially crafted file, requiring an attacker to convince a user to process this file with binutils. Furthermore, binutils does not handle privileged operations, meaning that exploitation is unlikely to lead to system compromise or escalation of privileges. Also, the impact is limited to the application itself, without affecting the broader system or network security. binutils as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8's GCC Toolset 10 and Red Hat Developer Toolset 10 are not affected by this flaw because the versions shipped have already received the patch.

This issue is classified with a low severity primarily because binutils is not typically exposed to untrusted inputs in most environments, limiting the possibility of exploitation. Additionally, this segmentation fault due to uninitialized data in the heap is only triggered during the parsing of a specially crafted file, requiring an attacker to convince a user to process this file with binutils. Furthermore, binutils does not handle privileged operations, meaning that exploitation is unlikely to lead to system compromise or escalation of privileges. Also, the impact is limited to the application itself, without affecting the broader system or network security.

binutils as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8's GCC Toolset 10 and Red Hat Developer Toolset 10 are not affected by this flaw because the versions shipped have already received the patch.

Additional information

  • Bugzilla 1911439: binutils: usage of unitialized heap in tic4x_print_cond function in opcodes/tic4x-dis.c
  • CWE-908: Use of Uninitialized Resource
  • FAQ: Frequently asked questions about CVE-2020-35494

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

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 HatNVD

CVSS v3 Base Score

6.1

6.1

Attack Vector

Local

Local

Attack Complexity

Low

Low

Privileges Required

None

None

User Interaction

Required

Required

Scope

Unchanged

Unchanged

Confidentiality Impact

Low

Low

Integrity Impact

None

None

Availability Impact

High

High

CVSS v3 Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H

NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Red Hat's CVSS v3 score or Impact different from other vendors?

My product is listed as "Under investigation" or "Affected", when will Red Hat release a fix for this vulnerability?

What can I do if my product is listed as "Will not fix"?

What can I do if my product is listed as "Fix deferred"?

What is a mitigation?

I have a Red Hat product but it is not in the above list, is it affected?

Why is my security scanner reporting my product as vulnerable to this vulnerability even though my product version is fixed or not affected?

Want to get errata notifications? Sign up here.