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Medium

Security advisory

Type: advisorySources: OSVCVE: CVE-2018-18605

A heap-based buffer over-read issue was discovered in the function sec_merge_hash_lookup in merge.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.31, because _bfd_add_merge_section mishandles section merges when size is not a multiple of entsize. A specially crafted ELF allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service, as demonstrated by ld.

Products
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Affected versions
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Fixed versions
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CVEs
CVE-2018-18605
Confirmed fixed CVEs
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Updated in this feed
1 Nov 2026, 07:40 UTC · Revision 1

Source evidence

CVE-2018-18605

core-osv · Original source

Published 23 Oct 2018, 17:29 UTC

A heap-based buffer over-read issue was discovered in the function sec_merge_hash_lookup in merge.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.31, because _bfd_add_merge_section mishandles section merges when size is not a multiple of entsize. A specially crafted ELF allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service, as demonstrated by ld.

osv:CVE-2018-18605
Complete source record
{
  "id": "ceac41746ea51cf0b7c45eb15a5b5e246fc1c5d416a2494693686fc8e3460e54",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-18605",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "CVE-2018-18605",
    "summary": "A heap-based buffer over-read issue was discovered in the function sec_merge_hash_lookup in merge.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.31, because _bfd_add_merge_section mishandles section merges when size is not a multiple of entsize. A specially crafted ELF allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service, as demonstrated by ld.",
    "evidence": "osv:CVE-2018-18605",
    "products": [],
    "severity": "medium",
    "structured": {
      "id": "CVE-2018-18605",
      "aliases": [
        "CVE-2018-18605"
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "type": "CVSS_V3",
          "score": "CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"
        }
      ],
      "affected": [
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "repo": "https://sourceware.org/git/binutils-gdb.git",
              "type": "GIT",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "af127c216949509e57ab2a28cc56c44e4e548813"
                },
                {
                  "last_affected": "af127c216949509e57ab2a28cc56c44e4e548813"
                }
              ],
              "database_specific": {
                "extracted_events": [
                  {
                    "cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:gnu:binutils:2.31:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "2.31"
                      },
                      {
                        "last_affected": "2.31"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "CPE_STRING"
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
          ],
          "versions": [
            "2.31",
            "binutils-2_31"
          ],
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2018-18605.json"
          }
        }
      ],
      "modified": "2026-10-24T10:30:56.584265966Z",
      "provider": "osv",
      "references": [
        "https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=binutils-gdb.git%3Bh=ab419ddbb2cdd17ca83618990f2cacf904ce1d61",
        "https://usn.ubuntu.com/4336-1/",
        "https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20190307-0003/",
        "https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=23804"
      ],
      "provider_metadata": {
        "unresolved_ranges": [
          {
            "cpes": [
              "cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
              "cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
              "cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
            ],
            "vendor_product": "debian:debian_linux",
            "extracted_events": [
              {
                "range": [
                  {
                    "introduced": "7.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "last_affected": "7.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "introduced": "8.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "last_affected": "8.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "introduced": "9.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "last_affected": "9.0"
                  }
                ],
                "source": "CPE_STRING"
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2018-18605",
        "evidence": "/id"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 438696,
  "published_at": "2018-10-23T17:29:00.363+00:00"
}