dbcve.org
BinutilsApplication · Gnu

CVE-2017-7226

CRITICAL · 9.1 CVSS v3.0 Published 2017-03-22
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
The pe_ILF_object_p function in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.28, is vulnerable to a heap-based buffer over-read of size 4049 because it uses the strlen function instead of strnlen, leading to program crashes in several utilities such as addr2line, size, and strings. It could lead to information disclosure as well.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-125

The code reads past the end (or before the start) of a buffer, returning memory that was never meant to be exposed. Attackers use it to leak secrets like keys or to defeat memory-protection defences. Remediation is validating indices and lengths before every read.

General guidance for the out-of-bounds read class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
BinutilsApplication
Affected:= 2.28

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Vendor patch sourceware.org →
Recommended fix High confidence

Binutils 2.29 or later stable release

  1. 1. Identify the current Binutils version using: `binutils --version` or `ld --version`
  2. 2. Download the latest stable Binutils release (2.29 or later) from https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils/
  3. 3. Extract the downloaded archive: `tar -xvf binutils-X.X.tar.gz`
  4. 4. Create a build directory and navigate to it: `mkdir binutils-build && cd binutils-build`
  5. 5. Configure the build (avoiding --prefix=/usr to prevent system conflicts): `../binutils-X.X/configure`
  6. 6. Compile: `make`
  7. 7. Install to a custom directory or replace system Binutils: `make install`
  8. 8. Verify the fix by checking the new version: `binutils --version`
Caveat Minor: Some output formatting or behavior changes may occur between major Binutils versions; test critical workflows after upgrade

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2017-7226 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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