CVE-2018-13033

Exp

The Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.30, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (excessive memory allocation and application crash) via a crafted ELF file, as demonstrated by _bfd_elf_parse_attributes in elf-attrs.c and bfd_malloc in libbfd.c. This can occur during execution of nm.

Published: 2018-07-01 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2018-13033 is rated High Exploit Risk (68.7/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 3.09%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +1.62% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

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

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2018-13033

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2018-13033

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 1.47% 3.09% +1.62%
2 2025-11-21 0.58% 1.47% +0.90%
3 2025-11-18 — 0.58% —

Full EPSS history (15 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-13033

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-2018-13033

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-13033

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2018-13033 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (binutils), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-13033
gentoo normal CVE-2018-13033: 1 GLSA(s) (201908-01), 1 atom(s) (sys-devel/binutils); latest impact normal. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2018-13033
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-13033
suse medium CVE-2018-13033 severity moderate: SUSE including 2 source package names (binutils-2.27-34.base.el7, binutils-devel-2.27-34.base.el7), 2 product×package rows across 1 product lines (SUSE Liberty Linux 7): Fixed 2. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-13033/
ubuntu low CVE-2018-13033 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (binutils), 20 status rows across 20 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 13, ignored 3, released 3, needed 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-13033

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-13033

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
gnu binutils 2.30 cpe:2.3:a:gnu:binutils:2.30:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_desktop 7.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_desktop:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_server 7.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_server:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_workstation 7.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_workstation:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat openshift_container_platform 3.11 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:openshift_container_platform:3.11:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-13033

cvelogic Threat Intelligence