CVE-2018-20002 Denial of service in n/a
A crafted ELF file causes a memory leak in the BFD library, leading to denial of service via memory consumption.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- A user has to click or open something
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2018-20002?
CVE-2018-20002 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Gnu Binutils, published on 10 Dec 2018. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Official description
The _bfd_generic_read_minisymbols function in syms.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.31, has a memory leak via a crafted ELF file, leading to a denial of service (memory consumption), as demonstrated by nm.
Weakness: CWE-772
Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-20002?
It affects 3 products.
Products include F5 Traffix Signaling Delivery Controller, Gnu Binutils, Netapp Vasa Provider.
How do I fix CVE-2018-20002?
Upgrade to a fixed version.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2018-20002 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-20002 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Gnu Binutils
Sources
Also known as ALPINE-CVE-2018-20002, CLEANSTART-2025-FE06703, DEBIAN-CVE-2018-20002, GHSA-hrvr-8x4g-x94c, UBUNTU-CVE-2018-20002.