Bug 1435183 (CVE-2016-10254) - CVE-2016-10254 elfutils: Memory allocation failure in allocate_elf
Summary: CVE-2016-10254 elfutils: Memory allocation failure in allocate_elf
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: CVE-2016-10254
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
low
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Red Hat Product Security
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2017-03-23 10:49 UTC by Andrej Nemec
Modified: 2019-09-29 14:08 UTC (History)
13 users (show)

Fixed In Version: elfutils 0.168
Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2017-03-23 10:50:35 UTC
Embargoed:

Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Andrej Nemec 2017-03-23 10:49:37 UTC 
A vulnerability was found in elfutils. A maliciously crafted ELF file could cause a very large allocation failure.

References:

https://blogs.gentoo.org/ago/2016/11/04/elfutils-memory-allocation-failure-in-allocate_elf-common-h/
http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2016/q4/368
Comment 1 Mark Wielaard 2017-03-23 11:09:33 UTC 
(In reply to Andrej Nemec from comment #0)
> A vulnerability was found in elfutils. A maliciously crafted ELF file could
> cause the application to crash.

Note that the real bug wasn't a crash (unless the application made malloc abort when an allocation failed) but a possibly very large allocation failure. The fix was to limit the maximum amount of memory the library would allocated to the file size that was being read.
Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.