CVE-2026-3442
Published: 16 March 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-3442 is a medium-severity Out-of-bounds Read (CWE-125) vulnerability in Redhat Enterprise Linux. Its CVSS base score is 6.1 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Malicious File (T1204.002); ranked at the 0.3th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
OOB read in file parser enables local DoS via crafted XCOFF (T1499.004) and relies on user processing malicious file (T1204.002).
NVD Description
A flaw was found in GNU Binutils. This vulnerability, a heap-based buffer overflow, specifically an out-of-bounds read, exists in the bfd linker component. An attacker could exploit this by convincing a user to process a specially crafted malicious XCOFF object…
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file. Successful exploitation may lead to the disclosure of sensitive information or cause the application to crash, resulting in an application level denial of service.
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2026-3442 is a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability, specifically an out-of-bounds read, in the BFD linker component of GNU Binutils. Published on 2026-03-16T14:19:47.720, it carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 6.1 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:L) and maps to CWE-125 (Out-of-bounds Read).
The vulnerability can be exploited by an attacker who convinces a user to process a specially crafted malicious XCOFF object file using affected GNU Binutils tools. Exploitation requires local access and user interaction but no privileges. Successful attacks may disclose sensitive information or crash the application, leading to an application-level denial of service.
Red Hat advisories provide further details on this issue, including patches and mitigation guidance, available at https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-3442 and https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2443828.
Details
- CWE(s)