oss-security - binutils: memory allocation failure in _bfd_elf_slurp_version

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Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2017 17:00:47 +0000
From: "Agostino Sarubbo" <ago@...too.org>
To: "oss-security@...ts.openwall.com" <oss-security@...ts.openwall.com>
Subject: binutils: memory allocation failure in _bfd_elf_slurp_version_tables (elf.c)

Description:
binutils is a set of tools necessary to build programs.

This issue was initially discovered because the nm process eat ~230GB of ram. Later on, another testcase hits the issue and now I have a 
stracktrace.
The relevant ASan output of the issue:

# nm -A -a -l -S -s --special-syms --synthetic --with-symbol-versions -D $FILE
    #8 0x4d8de4 in malloc /var/tmp/portage/sys-libs/compiler-rt-sanitizers-5.0.0/work/compiler-rt-5.0.0.src/lib/asan/asan_malloc_linux.cc:68
    #9 0x7fd0deccb41d in _objalloc_alloc /var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/binutils-9999/work/binutils/libiberty/objalloc.c:143:22
    #10 0x7fd0de921c24 in bfd_alloc /var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/binutils-9999/work/binutils/bfd/opncls.c:949:9
    #11 0x7fd0de921c24 in bfd_zalloc2 /var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/binutils-9999/work/binutils/bfd/opncls.c:1031
    #12 0x7fd0de9b2db8 in _bfd_elf_slurp_version_tables /var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/binutils-9999/work/binutils/bfd/elf.c:8222:2
    #13 0x7fd0de999da7 in bfd_elf64_slurp_symbol_table /var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/binutils-9999/work/binutils/bfd/elfcode.h:1165:9
    #14 0x7fd0de9ed876 in _bfd_elf_canonicalize_dynamic_symtab /var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/binutils-9999/work/binutils/bfd/elf.c:8099:19
    #15 0x7fd0de935fc7 in _bfd_generic_read_minisymbols /var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/binutils-9999/work/binutils/bfd/syms.c
    #16 0x513a53 in display_rel_file /var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/binutils-9999/work/binutils/binutils/nm.c:1107:14
    #17 0x510f56 in display_file /var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/binutils-9999/work/binutils/binutils/nm.c:1318:7
    #18 0x50faae in main /var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/binutils-9999/work/binutils/binutils/nm.c:1792:12
    #19 0x7fd0dd934680 in __libc_start_main /var/tmp/portage/sys-libs/glibc-2.23-r4/work/glibc-2.23/csu/../csu/libc-start.c:289
    #20 0x41ac18 in _init (/usr/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/binutils-bin/git/nm+0x41ac18)

Affected version:
2.29.51.20170921 and maybe past releases

Fixed version:
N/A

Commit fix:
https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=binutils-gdb.git;h=bd61e135492ecf624880e6b78e5fcde3c9716df6

Credit:
This bug was discovered by Agostino Sarubbo of Gentoo.

CVE:
CVE-2017-14938

Reproducer:
https://github.com/asarubbo/poc/blob/master/00368-binutils-memallocfailure-_bfd_elf_slurp_version_tables

Timeline:
2017-09-21: bug discovered and reported to upstream
2017-09-24: upstream released a patch
2017-09-26: blog post about the issue
2017-09-29: CVE assigned

Note:
This bug was found with American Fuzzy Lop.
This bug was identified with bare metal servers donated by Packet. This work is also supported by the Core Infrastructure Initiative.

Permalink:
https://blogs.gentoo.org/ago/2017/09/26/binutils-memory-allocation-failure-in-_bfd_elf_slurp_version_tables-elf-c/

--
Agostino Sarubbo
Gentoo Linux Developer

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