CVE-2026-19548: Red Hat Hardened Images · Use After Free
Affects Red Hat Hardened ImagesSource CVE Database V5
Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.5 Medium.
Data as of 10 Nov 2026, 23:24 UTC
Thin evidence
One scorer or none| CNA (redhat) | CVSS 3.1 | 5.5 |
|---|
- EPSS
- 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 6% 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:HExploitation evidence
Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 12 Aug 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: 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 10 Nov 2026.
What to do
Affected software
| Product | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Hardened Imagesbinutils-main | Affected– | Fixed in– |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10binutils | Affected– | Fixed in– |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10gcc-toolset-15-binutils | Affected– | Fixed in– |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10gcc-toolset-16-binutils | Affected– | Fixed in– |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10mingw-binutils | Affected– | Fixed in– |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6binutils | Affected– | Fixed in– |
AI-suggested
Red Hat's advisory does not indicate an official fix or patch is currently available. Build environments should avoid running LTO-enabled linking against untrusted or externally supplied object and archive files. The linker is a build-time tool not present in production runtimes, so exposure is primarily to CI/CD pipelines and developer workstations building from untrusted sources. Existing system hardening measures (ASLR, stack protector, FORTIFY_SOURCE, PIE) substantially reduce the likelihood of arbitrary code execution, limiting the realistic impact to denial of service via linker crash.
Description
Multiple Use-After-Free vulnerabilities were found in the add_archive_element function in ld/ldmain.c of the GNU linker (ld), a component of binutils. The root cause is that plugin_maybe_claim() in ld/plugin.c frees the original BFD object via bfd_close/_bfd_delete_bfd when entry->the_bfd->my_archive == NULL, but the caller retains both the original abfd parameter and a shallow copy (orig_input.the_bfd) as dangling pointers. These dangling pointers are subsequently dereferenced at three distinct locations in add_archive_element: 1. Line ~1442: accessing abfd->my_archive via bfd_usrdata(abfd->my_archive) 2. Line ~1493: multiple accesses to abfd and abfd->my_archive in a conditional check and bfd_get_filename call 3. Line ~1525: dereferencing the shallow copy orig_input.the_bfd->my_archive in trace/verbose logging The vulnerability is triggered when LTO plugins are active (link_info.lto_plugin_active is true) and the input object has abfd->my_archive == NULL, which is a valid state for standalone object files. Red Hat builds binutils with --enable-plugins and --enable-lto, confirming the vulnerable code path is compiled in and reachable. An attacker who can supply a crafted object or archive file to a build process using LTO-enabled linking could exploit this flaw to cause a denial of service (linker crash via segmentation fault). Arbitrary code execution is theoretically possible through heap manipulation but is substantially mitigated by hardening measures including stack protector, FORTIFY_SOURCE, ASLR, and PIE. The attack surface is limited to build-time environments — the linker is a development tool not exposed in production runtime. The most realistic exploitation scenario is a supply chain attack introducing a crafted object file as a build dependency in CI/CD pipelines or development environments.