CVE-2017-17124: GNU Binutils

High severity, CVSS 7.8. EPSS: 1.8% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

The _bfd_coff_read_string_table function in coffgen.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.29.1, does not properly validate the size of the external string table, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (excessive memory consumption, or heap-based buffer overflow and application crash) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted COFF binary.

Affected products

• GNU Binutils: version 2.29.1 only

Published 2017-12-04. Last modified 2026-06-17.