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Fencer Intel
medium 5.5

CVE-2017-9040 json

GNU Binutils 2017-04-03 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and application crash), related to t…

published 2017-05-18 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-17980

cvss
5.5
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.1%
EPSS 2.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 81%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

GNU Binutils 2017-04-03 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and application crash), related to the process_mips_specific function in readelf.c, via a crafted ELF file that triggers a large memory-allocation attempt.

Patch / fix

  • binutils Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.29-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-9040

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

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-9040

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

  • binutils SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES for SAP 12 SP1 +7 more 2.29.1-9.20.2
  • cross-ppc-binutils SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP3, SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP2 2.29.1-9.20.2
  • cross-spu-binutils SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP3, SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP2 2.29.1-9.20.2

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2017:3170-1

  • binutils Arch Linux 2.29.0-1

arch linux advisories AVG-276

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-2017-9040 updated cvss 3.3

binutils: NULL pointer dereference in the process_mips_specific_function

  • 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

Exploit prediction

2.07% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 81% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

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.