The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

  - A flaw was found in binutils readelf 2.35 program. An attacker who is able to convince a victim using     readelf to read a crafted file could trigger a stack buffer overflow, out-of-bounds write of arbitrary     data supplied by the attacker. The highest impact of this flaw is to confidentiality, integrity, and     availability. (CVE-2021-20294)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

The version of gcc10-binutils installed on the remote host is prior to 2.35-21. It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the ALAS2-2021-1702 advisory.

    2024-01-19: CVE-2021-20284 was added to this advisory.

    An issue was discovered in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU     Binutils 2.35.1. A heap-based buffer over-read can occur in bfd_getl_signed_32 in libbfd.c because     sh_entsize is not validated in _bfd_elf_slurp_secondary_reloc_section in elf.c. (CVE-2020-35448)

    A flaw was found in GNU Binutils 2.35.1, where there is a heap-based buffer overflow in
    _bfd_elf_slurp_secondary_reloc_section in elf.c due to the number of symbols not calculated correctly. The     highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability. (CVE-2021-20284)

    A flaw was found in binutils' readelf program. An attacker who is able to convince a victim using readelf     to read a crafted file, could trigger a stack buffer overflow, out-of-bounds write of arbitrary data     supplied by the attacker. The highest impact of this flaw is to confidentiality, integrity, and     availability. (CVE-2021-20294)

    There's a flaw in the BFD library of binutils. An attacker who supplies a crafted file to an application     linked with BFD, and using the DWARF functionality, could cause an impact to system availability by way of     excessive memory consumption. (CVE-2021-3487)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the tested product security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-202208-30 (GNU Binutils: Multiple Vulnerabilities)

  - There is an open race window when writing output in the following utilities in GNU binutils version 2.35     and earlier:ar, objcopy, strip, ranlib. When these utilities are run as a privileged user (presumably as     part of a script updating binaries across different users), an unprivileged user can trick these utilities     into getting ownership of arbitrary files through a symlink. (CVE-2021-20197)

  - A flaw was found in GNU Binutils 2.35.1, where there is a heap-based buffer overflow in
    _bfd_elf_slurp_secondary_reloc_section in elf.c due to the number of symbols not calculated correctly. The     highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability. (CVE-2021-20284)

  - A flaw was found in binutils readelf 2.35 program. An attacker who is able to convince a victim using     readelf to read a crafted file could trigger a stack buffer overflow, out-of-bounds write of arbitrary     data supplied by the attacker. The highest impact of this flaw is to confidentiality, integrity, and     availability. (CVE-2021-20294)

  - There's a flaw in the BFD library of binutils in versions before 2.36. An attacker who supplies a crafted     file to an application linked with BFD, and using the DWARF functionality, could cause an impact to system     availability by way of excessive memory consumption. (CVE-2021-3487)

  - A flaw was discovered in GNU libiberty within demangle_path() in rust-demangle.c, as distributed in GNU     Binutils version 2.36. A crafted symbol can cause stack memory to be exhausted leading to a crash.
    (CVE-2021-3530)

  - An out of bounds flaw was found in GNU binutils objdump utility version 2.36. An attacker could use this     flaw and pass a large section to avr_elf32_load_records_from_section() probably resulting in a crash or in     some cases memory corruption. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to integrity as well as system     availability. (CVE-2021-3549)

  - stab_xcoff_builtin_type in stabs.c in GNU Binutils through 2.37 allows attackers to cause a denial of     service (heap-based buffer overflow) or possibly have unspecified other impact, as demonstrated by an out-     of-bounds write. NOTE: this issue exists because of an incorrect fix for CVE-2018-12699. (CVE-2021-45078)

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote SUSE Linux SUSE15 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the openSUSE-SU-2021:3643-1 advisory.

  - A flaw was found in binutils readelf 2.35 program. An attacker who is able to convince a victim using     readelf to read a crafted file could trigger a stack buffer overflow, out-of-bounds write of arbitrary     data supplied by the attacker. The highest impact of this flaw is to confidentiality, integrity, and     availability. (CVE-2021-20294)

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

An update of the binutils package has been released.

The remote SUSE Linux SLED12 / SLES12 / SLES_SAP12 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the SUSE-SU-2021:3637-1 advisory.

  - A flaw was found in binutils readelf 2.35 program. An attacker who is able to convince a victim using     readelf to read a crafted file could trigger a stack buffer overflow, out-of-bounds write of arbitrary     data supplied by the attacker. The highest impact of this flaw is to confidentiality, integrity, and     availability. (CVE-2021-20294)

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote SUSE Linux SLES15 / SLES_SAP15 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the SUSE-SU-2022:0934-1 advisory.

    - For compatibility on old code stream that expect 'brcl 0,label' to       not be disassembled as 'jgnop label' on s390x.  (bsc#1192267)       This reverts IBM zSeries HLASM support for now.
    - Fixed that ppc64 optflags did not enable LTO (bsc#1188941).
    - Fix empty man-pages from broken release tarball
    - Fixed a memory corruption with rpath option (bsc#1191473).
    - Fixed slow performance of stripping some binaries (bsc#1183909).


    Update to binutils 2.37:

    * The GNU Binutils sources now requires a C99 compiler and library to       build.
    * Support for Realm Management Extension (RME) for AArch64 has been       added.
    * A new linker option '-z report-relative-reloc' for x86 ELF targets       has been added to report dynamic relative relocations.
    * A new linker option '-z start-stop-gc' has been added to disable       special treatment of __start_*/__stop_* references when
      --gc-sections.
    * A new linker options '-Bno-symbolic' has been added which will       cancel the '-Bsymbolic' and '-Bsymbolic-functions' options.
    * The readelf tool has a new command line option which can be used to       specify how the numeric values of symbols are reported.
      --sym-base=0|8|10|16 tells readelf to display the values in base 8,       base 10 or base 16.  A sym base of 0 represents the default action       of displaying values under 10000 in base 10 and values above that in       base 16.
    * A new format has been added to the nm program.  Specifying       '--format=just-symbols' (or just using -j) will tell the program to       only display symbol names and nothing else.
    * A new command line option '--keep-section-symbols' has been added to       objcopy and strip.  This stops the removal of unused section symbols       when the file is copied.  Removing these symbols saves space, but       sometimes they are needed by other tools.
    * The '--weaken', '--weaken-symbol' and '--weaken-symbols' options       supported by objcopy now make undefined symbols weak on targets that       support weak symbols.
    * Readelf and objdump can now display and use the contents of .debug_sup       sections.
    * Readelf and objdump will now follow links to separate debug info       files by default.  This behaviour can be stopped via the use of the       new '-wN' or '--debug-dump=no-follow-links' options for readelf and       the '-WN' or '--dwarf=no-follow-links' options for objdump.  Also       the old behaviour can be restored by the use of the       '--enable-follow-debug-links=no' configure time option.

      The semantics of the =follow-links option have also been slightly       changed.  When enabled, the option allows for the loading of symbol       tables and string tables from the separate files which can be used       to enhance the information displayed when dumping other sections,       but it does not automatically imply that information from the       separate files should be displayed.

      If other debug section display options are also enabled (eg       '--debug-dump=info') then the contents of matching sections in both       the main file and the separate debuginfo file *will* be displayed.
      This is because in most cases the debug section will only be present       in one of the files.

      If however non-debug section display options are enabled (eg       '--sections') then the contents of matching parts of the separate       debuginfo file will *not* be displayed.  This is because in most       cases the user probably only wanted to load the symbol information       from the separate debuginfo file.  In order to change this behaviour       a new command line option --process-links can be used.  This will       allow di0pslay options to applied to both the main file and any       separate debuginfo files.

    * Nm has a new command line option: '--quiet'.  This suppresses 'no       symbols' diagnostic.

    Update to binutils 2.36:

    New features in the Assembler:

    - General:

       * When setting the link order attribute of ELF sections, it is now          possible to use a numeric section index instead of symbol name.
       * Added a .nop directive to generate a single no-op instruction in          a target neutral manner.  This instruction does have an effect on          DWARF line number generation, if that is active.
       * Removed --reduce-memory-overheads and --hash-size as gas now          uses hash tables that can be expand and shrink automatically.

    - X86/x86_64:

       * Add support for AVX VNNI, HRESET, UINTR, TDX, AMX and Key          Locker instructions.
       * Support non-absolute segment values for lcall and ljmp.
       * Add {disp16} pseudo prefix to x86 assembler.
       * Configure with --enable-x86-used-note by default for Linux/x86.

    -  ARM/AArch64:

       * Add support for Cortex-A78, Cortex-A78AE and Cortex-X1,          Cortex-R82, Neoverse V1, and Neoverse N2 cores.
       * Add support for ETMv4 (Embedded Trace Macrocell), ETE (Embedded          Trace Extension), TRBE (Trace Buffer Extension), CSRE (Call          Stack Recorder Extension) and BRBE (Branch Record Buffer          Extension) system registers.
       * Add support for Armv8-R and Armv8.7-A ISA extensions.
       * Add support for DSB memory nXS barrier, WFET and WFIT          instruction for Armv8.7.
       * Add support for +csre feature for -march. Add CSR PDEC          instruction for CSRE feature in AArch64.
       * Add support for +flagm feature for -march in Armv8.4 AArch64.
       * Add support for +ls64 feature for -march in Armv8.7          AArch64. Add atomic 64-byte load/store instructions for this          feature.
       * Add support for +pauth (Pointer Authentication) feature for
         -march in AArch64.

    New features in the Linker:

      * Add --error-handling-script=<NAME> command line option to allow         a helper script to be invoked when an undefined symbol or a         missing library is encountered.  This option can be suppressed         via the configure time switch: --enable-error-handling-script=no.
      * Add -z x86-64-{baseline|v[234]} to the x86 ELF linker to mark         x86-64-{baseline|v[234]} ISA level as needed.
      * Add -z unique-symbol to avoid duplicated local symbol names.
      * The creation of PE format DLLs now defaults to using a more         secure set of DLL characteristics.
      * The linker now deduplicates the types in .ctf sections.  The new          command-line option --ctf-share-types describes how to do this:
         its default value, share-unconflicted, produces the most compact          output.
      * The linker now omits the 'variable section' from .ctf sections         by default, saving space.  This is almost certainly what you         want unless you are working on a project that has its own         analogue of symbol tables that are not reflected in the ELF         symtabs.

    New features in other binary tools:

      * The ar tool's previously unused l modifier is now used for         specifying dependencies of a static library. The arguments of         this option (or --record-libdeps long form option) will be         stored verbatim in the __.LIBDEP member of the archive, which         the linker may read at link time.
      * Readelf can now display the contents of LTO symbol table         sections when asked to do so via the --lto-syms command line         option.
      * Readelf now accepts the -C command line option to enable the         demangling of symbol names.  In addition the --demangle=<style>,
        --no-demangle, --recurse-limit and --no-recurse-limit options         are also now availale.

    The following security fixes are addressed by the update:

    - CVE-2021-20197: Fixed a race condition which allows users to own arbitrary files (bsc#1181452).
    - CVE-2021-20284: Fixed a heap-based buffer overflow in _bfd_elf_slurp_secondary_reloc_section in elf.c     (bsc#1183511).
    - CVE-2021-3487: Fixed a denial of service via excessive debug section size causing excessive memory     consumption in bfd's dwarf2.c read_section() (bsc#1184620).
    - CVE-2020-35448: Fixed a heap-based buffer over-read in bfd_getl_signed_32() in libbfd.c (bsc#1184794).
    - CVE-2020-16590: Fixed a double free vulnerability in process_symbol_table() (bsc#1179898).
    - CVE-2020-16591: Fixed an invalid read in process_symbol_table() (bsc#1179899).
    - CVE-2020-16592: Fixed an use-after-free in bfd_hash_lookup() (bsc#1179900).
    - CVE-2020-16593: Fixed a null pointer dereference in scan_unit_for_symbols() (bsc#1179901).
    - CVE-2020-16598: Fixed a null pointer dereference in debug_get_real_type() (bsc#1179902).
    - CVE-2020-16599: Fixed a null pointer dereference in _bfd_elf_get_symbol_version_string() (bsc#1179903)
    - CVE-2020-35493: Fixed heap-based buffer overflow in bfd_pef_parse_function_stubs function in bfd/pef.c     via crafted PEF file (bsc#1180451).
    - CVE-2020-35496: Fixed multiple null pointer dereferences in bfd module due to not checking return value     of bfd_malloc (bsc#1180454).
    - CVE-2020-35507: Fixed a null pointer dereference in bfd_pef_parse_function_stubs() (bsc#1180461).
    - CVE-2021-20294: Fixed out-of-bounds write in print_dynamic_symbol in readelf (bnc#1184519)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the SUSE security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

An update of the crash package has been released.

The remote SUSE Linux SLED15 / SLES15 / SLES_SAP15 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the SUSE-SU-2021:3643-1 advisory.

  - A flaw was found in binutils readelf 2.35 program. An attacker who is able to convince a victim using     readelf to read a crafted file could trigger a stack buffer overflow, out-of-bounds write of arbitrary     data supplied by the attacker. The highest impact of this flaw is to confidentiality, integrity, and     availability. (CVE-2021-20294)

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote openSUSE 15 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the openSUSE-SU-2021:1475-1 advisory.

    Update to binutils 2.37:

    * The GNU Binutils sources now requires a C99 compiler and library to       build.
    * Support for Realm Management Extension (RME) for AArch64 has been       added.
    * A new linker option '-z report-relative-reloc' for x86 ELF targets       has been added to report dynamic relative relocations.
    * A new linker option '-z start-stop-gc' has been added to disable       special treatment of __start_*/__stop_* references when
      --gc-sections.
    * A new linker options '-Bno-symbolic' has been added which will       cancel the '-Bsymbolic' and '-Bsymbolic-functions' options.
    * The readelf tool has a new command line option which can be used to       specify how the numeric values of symbols are reported.
      --sym-base=0|8|10|16 tells readelf to display the values in base 8,       base 10 or base 16.  A sym base of 0 represents the default action       of displaying values under 10000 in base 10 and values above that in       base 16.
    * A new format has been added to the nm program.  Specifying       '--format=just-symbols' (or just using -j) will tell the program to       only display symbol names and nothing else.
    * A new command line option '--keep-section-symbols' has been added to       objcopy and strip.  This stops the removal of unused section symbols       when the file is copied.  Removing these symbols saves space, but       sometimes they are needed by other tools.
    * The '--weaken', '--weaken-symbol' and '--weaken-symbols' options       supported by objcopy now make undefined symbols weak on targets that       support weak symbols.
    * Readelf and objdump can now display and use the contents of .debug_sup       sections.
    * Readelf and objdump will now follow links to separate debug info       files by default.  This behaviour can be stopped via the use of the       new '-wN' or '--debug-dump=no-follow-links' options for readelf and       the '-WN' or '--dwarf=no-follow-links' options for objdump.  Also       the old behaviour can be restored by the use of the       '--enable-follow-debug-links=no' configure time option.

      The semantics of the =follow-links option have also been slightly       changed.  When enabled, the option allows for the loading of symbol       tables and string tables from the separate files which can be used       to enhance the information displayed when dumping other sections,       but it does not automatically imply that information from the       separate files should be displayed.

      If other debug section display options are also enabled (eg       '--debug-dump=info') then the contents of matching sections in both       the main file and the separate debuginfo file *will* be displayed.
      This is because in most cases the debug section will only be present       in one of the files.

      If however non-debug section display options are enabled (eg       '--sections') then the contents of matching parts of the separate       debuginfo file will *not* be displayed.  This is because in most       cases the user probably only wanted to load the symbol information       from the separate debuginfo file.  In order to change this behaviour       a new command line option --process-links can be used.  This will       allow di0pslay options to applied to both the main file and any       separate debuginfo files.

    * Nm has a new command line option: '--quiet'.  This suppresses 'no       symbols' diagnostic.

    Update to binutils 2.36:

    New features in the Assembler:

    - General:

       * When setting the link order attribute of ELF sections, it is now          possible to use a numeric section index instead of symbol name.
       * Added a .nop directive to generate a single no-op instruction in          a target neutral manner.  This instruction does have an effect on          DWARF line number generation, if that is active.
       * Removed --reduce-memory-overheads and --hash-size as gas now          uses hash tables that can be expand and shrink automatically.

    - X86/x86_64:

       * Add support for AVX VNNI, HRESET, UINTR, TDX, AMX and Key          Locker instructions.
       * Support non-absolute segment values for lcall and ljmp.
       * Add {disp16} pseudo prefix to x86 assembler.
       * Configure with --enable-x86-used-note by default for Linux/x86.

    -  ARM/AArch64:

       * Add support for Cortex-A78, Cortex-A78AE and Cortex-X1,          Cortex-R82, Neoverse V1, and Neoverse N2 cores.
       * Add support for ETMv4 (Embedded Trace Macrocell), ETE (Embedded          Trace Extension), TRBE (Trace Buffer Extension), CSRE (Call          Stack Recorder Extension) and BRBE (Branch Record Buffer          Extension) system registers.
       * Add support for Armv8-R and Armv8.7-A ISA extensions.
       * Add support for DSB memory nXS barrier, WFET and WFIT          instruction for Armv8.7.
       * Add support for +csre feature for -march. Add CSR PDEC          instruction for CSRE feature in AArch64.
       * Add support for +flagm feature for -march in Armv8.4 AArch64.
       * Add support for +ls64 feature for -march in Armv8.7          AArch64. Add atomic 64-byte load/store instructions for this          feature.
       * Add support for +pauth (Pointer Authentication) feature for
         -march in AArch64.

    New features in the Linker:

      * Add --error-handling-script=<NAME> command line option to allow         a helper script to be invoked when an undefined symbol or a         missing library is encountered.  This option can be suppressed         via the configure time switch: --enable-error-handling-script=no.
      * Add -z x86-64-{baseline|v[234]} to the x86 ELF linker to mark         x86-64-{baseline|v[234]} ISA level as needed.
      * Add -z unique-symbol to avoid duplicated local symbol names.
      * The creation of PE format DLLs now defaults to using a more         secure set of DLL characteristics.
      * The linker now deduplicates the types in .ctf sections.  The new          command-line option --ctf-share-types describes how to do this:
         its default value, share-unconflicted, produces the most compact          output.
      * The linker now omits the 'variable section' from .ctf sections         by default, saving space.  This is almost certainly what you         want unless you are working on a project that has its own         analogue of symbol tables that are not reflected in the ELF         symtabs.

    New features in other binary tools:

      * The ar tool's previously unused l modifier is now used for         specifying dependencies of a static library. The arguments of         this option (or --record-libdeps long form option) will be         stored verbatim in the __.LIBDEP member of the archive, which         the linker may read at link time.
      * Readelf can now display the contents of LTO symbol table         sections when asked to do so via the --lto-syms command line         option.
      * Readelf now accepts the -C command line option to enable the         demangling of symbol names.  In addition the --demangle=<style>,
        --no-demangle, --recurse-limit and --no-recurse-limit options         are also now availale.

    Other fixes:

    - For compatibility on old code stream that expect 'brcl 0,label' to       not be disassembled as 'jgnop label' on s390x.  (bsc#1192267)       This reverts IBM zSeries HLASM support for now.
    - Fixed that ppc64 optflags did not enable LTO (bsc#1188941).
    - Fix empty man-pages from broken release tarball
    - Fixed a memory corruption with rpath option (bsc#1191473).
    - Fixed slow performance of stripping some binaries (bsc#1183909).

    The following security fixes are addressed by the update:

    - CVE-2021-20197: Fixed a race condition which allows users to own arbitrary files (bsc#1181452).
    - CVE-2021-20284: Fixed a heap-based buffer overflow in _bfd_elf_slurp_secondary_reloc_section in elf.c     (bsc#1183511).
    - CVE-2021-3487: Fixed a denial of service via excessive debug section size causing excessive memory     consumption in bfd's dwarf2.c read_section() (bsc#1184620).
    - CVE-2020-35448: Fixed a heap-based buffer over-read in bfd_getl_signed_32() in libbfd.c (bsc#1184794).
    - CVE-2020-16590: Fixed a double free vulnerability in process_symbol_table() (bsc#1179898).
    - CVE-2020-16591: Fixed an invalid read in process_symbol_table() (bsc#1179899).
    - CVE-2020-16592: Fixed an use-after-free in bfd_hash_lookup() (bsc#1179900).
    - CVE-2020-16593: Fixed a null pointer dereference in scan_unit_for_symbols() (bsc#1179901).
    - CVE-2020-16598: Fixed a null pointer dereference in debug_get_real_type() (bsc#1179902).
    - CVE-2020-16599: Fixed a null pointer dereference in _bfd_elf_get_symbol_version_string() (bsc#1179903)
    - CVE-2020-35493: Fixed heap-based buffer overflow in bfd_pef_parse_function_stubs function in bfd/pef.c     via crafted PEF file (bsc#1180451).
    - CVE-2020-35496: Fixed multiple null pointer dereferences in bfd module due to not checking return value     of bfd_malloc (bsc#1180454).
    - CVE-2020-35507: Fixed a null pointer dereference in bfd_pef_parse_function_stubs() (bsc#1180461).
    - CVE-2021-20294: Fixed out-of-bounds write in print_dynamic_symbol in readelf (bnc#1184519)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the SUSE security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Published	Updated	Severity
223670	Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2021-20294	Nessus	Misc.	3/4/2025	9/3/2025	high
153420	Amazon Linux 2 : gcc10-binutils (ALAS-2021-1702)	Nessus	Amazon Linux Local Security Checks	9/16/2021	9/25/2025	high
164113	GLSA-202208-30 : GNU Binutils: Multiple Vulnerabilities	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	8/15/2022	10/16/2023	high
155008	openSUSE 15 Security Update : binutils (openSUSE-SU-2021:3643-1)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	11/10/2021	11/24/2023	high
204300	Photon OS 4.0: Binutils PHSA-2023-4.0-0426	Nessus	PhotonOS Local Security Checks	7/24/2024	7/24/2024	high
155001	SUSE SLED12 / SLES12 Security Update : binutils (SUSE-SU-2021:3637-1)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	11/10/2021	7/13/2023	high
149830	Photon OS 4.0: Binutils PHSA-2021-4.0-0024	Nessus	PhotonOS Local Security Checks	5/21/2021	7/23/2024	high
159175	SUSE SLES15 Security Update : binutils (SUSE-SU-2022:0934-1)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	3/23/2022	9/24/2025	high
203529	Photon OS 4.0: Crash PHSA-2023-4.0-0414	Nessus	PhotonOS Local Security Checks	7/23/2024	8/20/2025	critical
155005	SUSE SLED15 / SLES15 Security Update : binutils (SUSE-SU-2021:3643-1)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	11/10/2021	7/13/2023	high
203822	Photon OS 3.0: Crash PHSA-2023-3.0-0601	Nessus	PhotonOS Local Security Checks	7/24/2024	8/20/2025	critical
155362	openSUSE 15 Security Update : binutils (openSUSE-SU-2021:1475-1)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	11/16/2021	12/16/2025	high

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