Medium
Security advisory
A NULL pointer dereference was discovered in elf_link_add_object_symbols in elflink.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.31.1. This occurs for a crafted ET_DYN with no program headers. A specially crafted ELF file allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service, as demonstrated by ld.
- Products
- Not specified
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- Not specified
- CVEs
- CVE-2018-20651
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 1 Nov 2026, 05:59 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
A NULL pointer dereference was discovered in elf_link_add_object_symbols in elflink.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.31.1. This occurs for a crafted ET_DYN with no program headers. A specially crafted ELF file allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service, as demonstrated by ld.
osv:CVE-2018-20651
Complete source record
{
"id": "36d1de0fdafa89d6d86454ec08b0fb57c1b1eed3dcea30648dd39ff8ec0b116a",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-20651",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "CVE-2018-20651",
"summary": "A NULL pointer dereference was discovered in elf_link_add_object_symbols in elflink.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.31.1. This occurs for a crafted ET_DYN with no program headers. A specially crafted ELF file allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service, as demonstrated by ld.",
"evidence": "osv:CVE-2018-20651",
"products": [],
"severity": "medium",
"structured": {
"id": "CVE-2018-20651",
"aliases": [
"CVE-2018-20651"
],
"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": "0860693812fff944ab0602e72b762a4a2078da5b"
},
{
"last_affected": "0860693812fff944ab0602e72b762a4a2078da5b"
}
],
"database_specific": {
"extracted_events": [
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:gnu:binutils:2.31.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"range": [
{
"introduced": "2.31.1"
},
{
"last_affected": "2.31.1"
}
],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
}
]
}
}
],
"versions": [
"2.31.1",
"binutils-2_31_1"
],
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2018-20651.json"
}
}
],
"modified": "2026-10-24T10:30:34.176629465Z",
"provider": "osv",
"references": [
"https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=binutils-gdb.git%3Bh=54025d5812ff100f5f0654eb7e1ffd50f2e37f5f",
"https://usn.ubuntu.com/4336-1/",
"https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201908-01",
"https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K38336243",
"https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=24041"
],
"provider_metadata": {}
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2018-20651",
"evidence": "/id"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 433456,
"published_at": "2019-01-01T16:29:00.343+00:00"
}