VulnerabilityPublished 6 Mar 2026Updated 10 Mar 2026

CVE-2025-69649: GNU Binutils thru · NULL Pointer Dereference

Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.5 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 12:55 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.5Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 19% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 6 Mar 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

microsoft-security-response-ce

What to do

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-69649, organizations should: 1) Avoid running readelf on untrusted or unauthenticated ELF binaries, especially those received from unverified sources. 2) Implement strict file validation and sandboxing when analyzing ELF files to limit the impact of potential crashes. 3) Monitor GNU Binutils project communications for patches or updates addressing this vulnerability and apply them promptly once available. 4) Consider using alternative ELF inspection tools that do not exhibit this vulnerability until a fix is released. 5) Incorporate error handling and process isolation in automated workflows that invoke readelf to prevent a single crash from impacting broader systems. 6) Educate developers and security analysts about the risk of denial-of-service via malformed ELF files and enforce policies to verify binary provenance. These steps go beyond generic advice by focusing on operational controls and proactive monitoring specific to ELF file handling and readelf usage.

Description

GNU Binutils thru 2.46 readelf contains a null pointer dereference vulnerability when processing a crafted ELF binary with malformed header fields. During relocation processing, an invalid or null section pointer may be passed into display_relocations(), resulting in a segmentation fault (SIGSEGV) and abrupt termination. No evidence of memory corruption beyond the null pointer dereference, nor any possibility of code execution, was observed.

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2025-69649 is on the availability of the readelf utility, which may crash when processing maliciously crafted ELF binaries. This can disrupt debugging, binary analysis, or automated tooling workflows that rely on readelf, potentially delaying development or security analysis tasks. Since readelf is widely used in Linux and Unix-like environments for inspecting ELF files, the vulnerability could affect developers, security researchers, and automated systems that parse ELF binaries. However, there is no impact on confidentiality or integrity, and no code execution or privilege escalation is possible. The requirement for local access and user interaction limits the attack surface, reducing the risk of remote exploitation. Organizations relying on GNU Binutils in build pipelines, security tools, or forensic analysis should be aware of potential denial-of-service conditions if untrusted ELF files are processed. The absence of known exploits and patches means risk is currently theoretical but should be addressed proactively.

CWE-476NULL Pointer Dereference (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: MediumCWE Top 25 (2025): #13OWASP Top 10 A10:2025: Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions (opens in a new tab)
The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.
Implementation
For any pointers that could have been modified or provided from a function that can return NULL, check the pointer for NULL before use. When working with a multithreaded or otherwise asynchronous environment, ensure that proper locking APIs are used to lock before the check, and unlock when it has finished.
Requirements
Select a programming language that is not susceptible to these issues.
Implementation
Check the results of all functions that return a value and verify that the value is non-null before acting upon it.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Logging (opens in a new tab)
Error Handling (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V11.1.7 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 13 Mar 2026, 19:31 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-476

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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