CVE-2017-9778

GNU Debugger (GDB) 8.0 and earlier fails to detect a negative length field in a DWARF section. A malformed section in an ELF binary or a core file can cause GDB to repeatedly allocate memory until a process limit is reached. This can, for example, impede efforts to analyze malware with GDB.

Published: 2017-06-21 Last update: 2026-05-13 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2017-9778 is rated Moderate Risk (44.4/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.11%). Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2017-9778

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.30% 1.11% +0.81%
2 2025-11-21 0.14% 0.30% +0.16%
3 2025-11-18 — 0.14% —

Full EPSS history (8 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2017-9778

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 1.8 3.6 [email protected]
4.3 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 8.6 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2017-9778

OS Trackers for CVE-2017-9778

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2017-9778 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (gdb), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2017-9778
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-9778
suse low CVE-2017-9778 severity low: SUSE including 2 source package names (gdb, gdbserver), 39 product×package rows across 31 product lines (HPE Helion OpenStack 8, SUSE CaaS Platform 4.0, … (31 product lines)): Known Not Affected 39. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-9778/
ubuntu low CVE-2017-9778 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (gdb), 22 status rows across 22 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial, yakkety, zesty): ignored 10, not-affected 8, needed 2, DNE 1, released 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2017-9778

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2017-9778

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
gnu gdb <= 8.0 cpe:2.3:a:gnu:gdb:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2017-9778

URL Tags
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/99244 Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=21600 Issue Tracking Third Party Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence