CVE-2026-19548
MediumCVSS 5.5Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk6th percentile - higher than 6% of all known CVEs
Summary
Multiple Use-After-Free vulnerabilities were found in the add_archive_element function in ld/ldmain.c of the GNU linker (ld) in binutils. The root cause is that plugin_maybe_claim() frees the original BFD object, leaving dangling pointers that are later dereferenced in three locations. The vulnerability is triggered when LTO plugins are active and the input object is not part of an archive.
Risk Assessment
An attacker can supply a crafted object or archive file to a build process using LTO-enabled linking, causing a linker crash (denial of service). In a supply chain attack scenario, a malicious file could be introduced as a build dependency in CI/CD pipelines, potentially disrupting builds or theoretically enabling code execution.
Recommendation
Immediately update binutils to a version containing the fix for CVE-2026-19548. If updating is not possible, restrict trust in object and archive files used in build processes, especially in CI/CD, and consider temporarily disabling LTO plugins.
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Original NVD description (English source)
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.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS