CVE-2019-17450 Denial of service in n/a

Medium 6.5 Published 10 Oct 2019 Updated 5 Aug 2024

Remote attackers can cause a denial of service via infinite recursion in the BFD library when processing crafted ELF files.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Not needed
Attackable: Over the internet
Victim action needed: A user has to click or open something
Fix: Available

What is CVE-2019-17450?

CVE-2019-17450 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 10 Oct 2019. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

Official description

find_abstract_instance in dwarf2.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.32, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite recursion and application crash) via a crafted ELF file.

Weakness: CWE-674

Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-17450?

It affects 3 products.

Linux distribution packages (6)

`binutils-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:8::appstream	All versions	`0:2.30-79.el8`
`binutils-debugsource` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:8::appstream	All versions	`0:2.30-79.el8`
`binutils-devel` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:8::appstream	All versions	`0:2.30-79.el8`
`binutils` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:8::baseos	All versions	`0:2.30-79.el8`
`binutils-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:8::baseos	All versions	`0:2.30-79.el8`
`binutils-debugsource` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:8::baseos	All versions	`0:2.30-79.el8`

Products include Canonical Ubuntu Linux, Gnu Binutils, Opensuse Leap.

How do I fix CVE-2019-17450?

Apply the vendor's patch.

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-2019-17450 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-17450 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Canonical Ubuntu Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2019-17450, GHSA-8c3q-4m86-34f8, RHSA-2020:4465, UBUNTU-CVE-2019-17450.