CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2017-6966 — Gnu Binutils security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.5

readelf in GNU Binutils 2.28 has a use-after-free (specifically read-after-free) error while processing multiple, relocated sections in an MSP430 binary. This is caused by mishandling of an invalid symbol index, and mishandling of state across invocations.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.5 (3.0)
Published
2017-03-17
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-416

Affected products

  • gnu / binutils / 2.28

Matched remediation archetype

Use-after-free, double free, and expired resource use

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Trace ownership, references, callbacks, asynchronous tasks, and teardown paths around the affected object or resource.
  • Identify reachable inputs and timing or state transitions that can release the object while references remain.
  • Confirm affected builds, allocators, feature flags, architectures, and process privileges.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the maintained ownership or lifetime fix and rebuild all artifacts containing the affected native code.
  • Use explicit ownership, safe reference management, cancellation and join semantics, and idempotent teardown.
  • Add deterministic lifetime tests plus isolated sanitizer and concurrency coverage for shutdown and error paths.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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