CVE-2026-18220
Received
Received - Intake
Out-of-Bounds Write in GNU Binutils DLX ELF Backend
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-18220, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-07-29
Last updated on: 2026-07-29
Assigner: Red Hat, Inc.
Description
Description
An out-of-bounds write vulnerability was found in the BFD library's DLX ELF backend (bfd/elf32-dlx.c) in GNU binutils. The dlx_rtype_to_howto() function maps ELF relocation types to internal howto structures but fails to perform adequate bounds checking on attacker-controlled relocation type values (via ELF32_R_TYPE(r_info)) before indexing into the dlx_elf_howto_table[] array. The DLX relocation type number space is non-contiguous (basic types 0-6, extended types at 0x10000+), but the default case in the switch statement allows arbitrary index values to reach the array access.
A specially crafted ELF/DLX object file can trigger this out-of-bounds write when processed by any BFD-consuming tool (objdump, readelf, strip, ld, nm, objcopy). The vulnerability has been demonstrated to achieve arbitrary code execution via a File Stream Oriented Programming (FSOP) attack against glibc FILE structures (stderr), redirecting control flow to system().
Attack scenarios include CI/CD pipelines performing automated binary analysis, developer workstations running objdump/readelf on untrusted binaries, automated security scanning or malware analysis tools invoking binutils, and package build systems processing third-party code.
Note: This vulnerability is only exploitable when binutils is built with the DLX backend enabled (typically via --enable-targets=all).
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
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Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| gnu | binutils | * |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
KEV
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-787 | The product writes data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer. |
