CVE-2026-6845

A flaw was found in binutils, specifically within the readelf utility. This vulnerability allows a local attacker to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by tricking a user into processing a specially crafted Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) file. The exploitation of this flaw can lead to the system becoming unresponsive due to excessive resource consumption or a program crash.

This Moderate impact vulnerability in the readelf utility, part of binutils, can lead to a denial of service. An attacker could exploit this by convincing a user to process a specially crafted ELF file, resulting in resource exhaustion or a null pointer dereference. This affects Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Developer Toolset where readelf is used to examine untrusted ELF binaries.

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.

To mitigate this issue, users should avoid processing untrusted or suspicious ELF files with the readelf utility. No specific configuration or operational control is available to prevent this vulnerability without affecting the intended functionality of readelf.