RedHat: RHSA-2021-4038:01 Moderate: binutils security update
Summary
The binutils packages provide a collection of binary utilities for the
manipulation of object code in various object file formats. It includes the
ar, as, gprof, ld, nm, objcopy, objdump, ranlib, readelf, size, strings,
strip, and addr2line utilities.
Security Fix(es):
* Developer environment: Unicode's bidirectional (BiDi) override characterscan cause trojan source attacks (CVE-2021-42574)
The following changes were introduced in binutils in order to facilitate
detection of BiDi Unicode characters:
Tools which display names or strings (readelf, strings, nm, objdump) have a
new command line option --unicode / -U which controls how Unicode
characters are handled.
Using "--unicode=default" will treat them as normal for the tool. This is
the default behaviour when --unicode option is not used.
Using "--unicode=locale" will display them according to the current locale.
Using "--unicode=hex" will display them as hex byte values.
Using "--unicode=escape" will display them as Unicode escape sequences.
Using "--unicode=highlight" will display them as Unicode escape sequences
highlighted in red, if supported by the output device.
For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS
score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE
page(s) listed in the References section.
Summary
Solution
For details on how to apply this update, which includes the changes
described in this advisory, refer to:
https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258
References
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-42574 https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderate https://access.redhat.com/security/vulnerabilities/RHSB-2021-007
Package List
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server AUS (v. 7.2):
Source:
binutils-2.23.52.0.1-55.el7_2.4.src.rpm
x86_64:
binutils-2.23.52.0.1-55.el7_2.4.x86_64.rpm
binutils-debuginfo-2.23.52.0.1-55.el7_2.4.i686.rpm
binutils-debuginfo-2.23.52.0.1-55.el7_2.4.x86_64.rpm
binutils-devel-2.23.52.0.1-55.el7_2.4.i686.rpm
binutils-devel-2.23.52.0.1-55.el7_2.4.x86_64.rpm
These packages are GPG signed by Red Hat for security. Our key and
details on how to verify the signature are available from
https://access.redhat.com/security/team/key/
Topic
An update for binutils is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2Advanced Update Support.Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having a security impactof Moderate. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, whichgives a detailed severity rating, is available for each vulnerability fromthe CVE link(s) in the References section.
Topic
Relevant Releases Architectures
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server AUS (v. 7.2) - x86_64
Bugs Fixed
2005819 - CVE-2021-42574 Developer environment: Unicode's bidirectional (BiDi) override characters can cause trojan source attacks
