Out-of-bounds Read in GNU Binutils

CVE-2020-16591

A Denial of Service vulnerability exists in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) in GNU Binutils 2.35 due to an invalid read in process_symbol_table, as demonstrated in readeif.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.009 (57.9th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 58th percentile — 57.9% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2020-16591: held from 0.009 to 0.009.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.009 · newest: 0.009 · change: +0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2020-16591?
CVE-2020-16591 is a medium-severity vulnerability in GNU Binutils, classified under Out-of-bounds Read. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2020-12-09.
How severe is CVE-2020-16591?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.
Is CVE-2020-16591 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.