CVE-2021-20294 Memory corruption in binutils

What is CVE-2021-20294?

CVE-2021-20294 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Gnu Binutils, published on 29 Apr 2021. 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

A flaw was found in binutils readelf 2.35 program. An attacker who is able to convince a victim using readelf to read a crafted file could trigger a stack buffer overflow, out-of-bounds write of arbitrary data supplied by the attacker. The highest impact of this flaw is to confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Weakness: CWE-787

Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-20294?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Gnu Binutils.

How do I fix CVE-2021-20294?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.

Is CVE-2021-20294 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-20294 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Public exploit code: 1 proofs of concept on GitHub.

Other vulnerabilities in Gnu Binutils

• CVE-2017-7614 Null dereference in n/a Critical 9.8
• CVE-2014-9939 Memory corruption in n/a Critical 9.8
• CVE-2017-7226 Information disclosure in n/a Critical 9.1
• CVE-2017-6969 Information disclosure in n/a Critical 9.1
• CVE-2020-19726 Denial of service in n/a High 8.8

All Gnu Binutils vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2021-20294, GHSA-rrj7-qm3x-w26v, SUSE-SU-2021:3637-1, SUSE-SU-2021:3643-1, openSUSE-SU-2021:3643-1, openSUSE-SU-2024:11634-1.