Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-66861

DoS in Gnu Binutils 2.26

Public PoCDoS
Published
29 December 2025
Modified
14 January 2026
CVSS Score v3.1 2.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
EPSS Score 0.0013 3th percentile
Risk Priority 15 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-66861 is a low-severity Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400) vulnerability in Gnu Binutils. Its CVSS base score is 2.5 (Low).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked at the 3th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

An issue was discovered in function d_unqualified_name in file cp-demangle.c in BinUtils 2.26 allowing attackers to cause a denial of service via crafted PE file.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
Why these techniques?

CWE-400 DoS in BinUtils via crafted PE directly enables application exploitation for endpoint DoS (T1499.004).

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-69646Same product: Gnu Binutils
CVE-2025-66863Same product: Gnu Binutils
CVE-2025-69644Same product: Gnu Binutils
CVE-2025-69645Same product: Gnu Binutils
CVE-2025-69647Same product: Gnu Binutils
CVE-2025-11839Same product: Gnu Binutils
CVE-2025-66865Same product: Gnu Binutils
CVE-2025-11840Same product: Gnu Binutils
CVE-2025-11081Same product: Gnu Binutils
CVE-2025-69650Same product: Gnu Binutils

Affected Assets

gnu
binutils
2.26

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • SI-10 Information Input Validation
  • SI-2 Flaw Remediation
  • SC-7 Boundary Protection
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Directly enforces validation of PE file inputs to the demangler to block malformed data that triggers uncontrolled resource consumption in d_unqualified_name.

prevent

Requires prompt application of patches or updates to BinUtils to eliminate the parsing flaw that enables crafted-PE DoS.

prevent

Boundary filtering and inspection of inbound files can drop untrusted or anomalous PE binaries before they reach vulnerable BinUtils components.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.IR-04 mostly match
prevents

Explicitly requires monitoring and maintaining resource capacity, directly addressing uncontrolled consumption to preserve availability.

DE.CM-09 partial match
prevents

Continuous monitoring of computing resources can detect resource exhaustion but does not itself enforce allocation limits.

PR.IR-03 partial match
prevents

Resilience mechanisms such as avoiding single points of failure indirectly reduce impact of resource exhaustion.

PR.PS-01 partial match
prevents

Hardened configuration baselines can include resource quotas and limits that constrain consumption.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

detects

Resource-utilization monitoring and alerting on bottlenecks or overloads limits the impact of denial-of-service or resource-exhaustion attacks.

prevents

By continuously monitoring utilization, stress-testing peak loads, and maintaining documented plans to scale or throttle resources, the control directly limits an attacker’s ability to drive a system into uncontrolled resource exhaustion.

detects

Pre-agreed severity-based prioritization and resource allocation during incident triage reduce the likelihood that an attacker-induced resource exhaustion will overwhelm the organization before corrective action is taken.

mitigates

Business-continuity plans that include resource-management controls reduce the likelihood that an attacker can trigger uncontrolled resource consumption by forcing the system into a degraded or fallback state.

mitigates

Defining RTOs and capacity requirements for ICT services during business-impact analysis forces organizations to provision sufficient resources and throttling mechanisms, reducing the likelihood that an attacker can induce denial-of-service through uncontrolled resource consumption.

detects

Early notification of anomalous resource consumption or system malfunctions enables throttling or isolation before availability is lost.

References