CVE-2018-12641
binutils: Stack Exhaustion in the demangling functions provided by libiberty
Severity
LowRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.0
Review impact separately from score.
Published · April 13, 2018
Updated · March 5, 2026
Description
An issue was discovered in arm_pt in cplus-dem.c in GNU libiberty, as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.30. Stack Exhaustion occurs in the C++ demangling functions provided by libiberty, and there are recursive stack frames: demangle_arm_hp_template, demangle_class_name, demangle_fund_type, do_type, do_arg, demangle_args, and demangle_nested_args. This can occur during execution of nm-new.
Statement
The issue is classified as low severity primarily because binutils is not typically exposed to untrusted inputs in most environments, limiting its exploitation potential. The stack overflow in demangle_class_name() only triggers during the parsing of malformed ELF files, which would require an attacker to convince a user to process a malicious file with binutils. Moreover, binutils does not handle privileged operations, meaning exploitation is unlikely to lead to system compromise or escalation of privileges. Additionally, the impact is localized to the application itself, without affecting the broader system or network security.
CVSS score applicability
The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.
Mitigation
No mitigation is specified in collected source.
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 3.0 · 3.3CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CWE-400 · Uncontrolled Resource Consumption