CVE-2020-16591
binutils: invalid read in process_symbol_table could result in DoS
Severity
LowRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.1
Review impact separately from score.
Published · December 10, 2020
Updated · March 5, 2026
Description
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.
Statement
binutils as shipped in Red Hat Developer Toolsets 9 and 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 BaseOS and GCC Toolsets 9 and 10, are all not affected by this flaw as it was introduced in a newer version of binutils code than shipped for BaseOS and the 9 toolsets, and already patched in the versions shipped with 10 toolsets.
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 3.1 · 5.5CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE-125 · Out-of-bounds Read