CVE-2018-17985

An issue was discovered in cp-demangle.c in GNU libiberty, as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.31. There is a stack consumption problem caused by the cplus_demangle_type function making recursive calls to itself in certain scenarios involving many 'P' characters.

Published: 2018-10-04 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2018-17985 is rated Moderate Risk (46.4/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.30%). EPSS rose +1.12% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. 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-2018-17985

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 0.18% 1.30% +1.12%
2 2025-07-13 0.13% 0.18% +0.05%
3 2025-07-06 — 0.13% —

Full EPSS history (10 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-17985

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-2018-17985

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-17985

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2018-17985 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-2018-17985
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-17985
suse medium CVE-2018-17985 severity moderate: SUSE including 361 source package names (0.23.1-12.3:binutils-2.32-7.5.1, 0.3.2-1.2:binutils-2.32-7.5.1, …), 768 product×package rows across 320 product lines (Container bci/bci-sle15-kernel-module-devel, Container bci/gcc, … (320 product lines)): Fixed 535, Known Affected 231, Will Not Fix 2. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-17985/
ubuntu low CVE-2018-17985 low priority: Ubuntu including 2 source packages (binutils, libiberty), 39 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 27, released 5, ignored 4, DNE 1, needed 1, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-17985

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-17985

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
gnu binutils 2.31 cpe:2.3:a:gnu:binutils:2.31:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-17985

cvelogic Threat Intelligence