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Fencer Intel
medium 5.5

CVE-2017-14939 json

decode_line_info in dwarf2.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.29, mishandles a le…

published 2017-09-29 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-6416

cvss
5.5
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
5.9%
EPSS 5.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 93%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

decode_line_info in dwarf2.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.29, mishandles a length calculation, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (heap-based buffer over-read and application crash) via a crafted ELF file, related to read_1_byte.

Patch / fix

  • binutils Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.29.90.20180122-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-14939

  • binutils Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 2.26.1-1ubuntu1~16.04.8+esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-14939

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2017-14939 updated cvss 3.3

binutils: Heap-based buffer over-read in the decode_line_info

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 binutils, binutils220 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 binutils Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 binutils
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. First public exploit (EDB-42970)

Exploit prediction

5.94% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 93% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-42970 binutils 2.29.51.20170921 - 'read_1_byte' Heap Buffer Overflow dos, 2017-10-10

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 5.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.