What is CVE-2023-1972?

CVE-2023-1972 is a medium-severity vulnerability in GNU Binutils, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. CVSS score: 6.5/10. Published 2023-05-17.

How severe is CVE-2023-1972?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.5 out of 10.

Is CVE-2023-1972 known to be exploited?

7 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Buffer overflow in GNU Binutils

CVE-2023-1972

A potential heap based buffer overflow was found in _bfd_elf_slurp_version_tables() in bfd/elf.c. This may lead to loss of availability.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2023-05-17 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 6.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.009 (57.9th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

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

Affected products

GNU Binutils
Binutils — versions affected at least binutils 2.40

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi (Issue Tracking)
sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi (Patch, Third Party Advisory, Issue Tracking)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/202309-15 (vendor-advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-1972?: CVE-2023-1972 is a medium-severity vulnerability in GNU Binutils, classified under Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer. CVSS score: 6.5/10. Published 2023-05-17.
How severe is CVE-2023-1972?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.5 out of 10.
Is CVE-2023-1972 known to be exploited?: 7 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.