CVE-2025-69650
Description
A flaw was found in binutils. Processing a specially crafted ELF binary file containing malformed relocation data with the readelf program can trigger a double free, causing a crash and resulting in a denial of service.
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 double free vulnerability is only triggered during the parsing of a specially crafted file, requiring an attacker to convince a user to process this file with readelf. 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.
Mitigation
To mitigate this vulnerability, do not process untrusted, unverified or externally supplied ELF binaries with the readelf program.
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 Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 3.3 | 7.5 | 7.5 |
| Attack Vector | Local | Network | Network |
| Attack Complexity | Low | Low | Low |
| Privileges Required | None | None | None |
| User Interaction | Required | None | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | Unchanged | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | None | None | None |
| Integrity Impact | None | None | None |
| Availability Impact | Low | High | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Red Hat CVSS v3 Score Explanation
An attacker needs to convince a local user into running readelf with a specially crafted file. To reflect this condition, the attack vector metric is set to local and the user interaction metric is set to required. Furthermore, an attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service, as the crash will only occur when a specially crafted file is processed, legitimate files can be processed normally. To reflect this condition, the availability metric is set to low.
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability
Technical Impact: Modify Memory; Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands
When a program calls free() twice with the same argument, the program's memory management data structures may become corrupted, potentially leading to the reading or modification of unexpected memory addresses. This corruption can cause the program to crash or, in some circumstances, cause two later calls to malloc() to return the same pointer. If malloc() returns the same value twice and the program later gives the attacker control over the data that is written into this doubly-allocated memory, the program becomes vulnerable to a buffer overflow attack. Doubly freeing memory may result in a write-what-where condition, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code.
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