CVE-2017-12448

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 2.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2017-08-04 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-416

Description

The bfd_cache_close function in bfd/cache.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.29 and earlier, allows remote attackers to cause a heap use after free and possibly achieve code execution via a crafted nested archive file. This issue occurs because incorrect functions are called during an attempt to release memory. The issue can be addressed by better input validation in the bfd_generic_archive_p function in bfd/archive.c.

Affected products

GNU Binutils: through 2.29

References

https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=21787
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=21787

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