Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
This flaw affects older radare2 versions and can let a maliciously crafted input file crash the application. The business impact is mainly disruption to reverse-engineering, malware-analysis, or automated file-inspection workflows, not confirmed system compromise.
Executive priority
Treat this as a targeted operational risk for teams that analyze untrusted files. Prioritize remediation in malware labs, security research systems, and automated analysis services before general desktops.
Technical view
radare2 before 3.1.2 has a stack-based buffer overflow in parseOperands in libr/asm/arch/arm/armass64.c. The public description states a crafted input file can trigger a denial-of-service application crash. The bundle does not provide CVSS, CWE mapping, or evidence of code execution.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely where radare2 versions before 3.1.2 process untrusted binaries, samples, or uploaded files. Internet-facing exposure is not established by the sources, unless an organization wraps radare2 inside a public analysis service.
Exploitation context
The cited CVE description says an attacker can cause a crash with a crafted input file. CISA KEV status is false, and the provided sources do not show active exploitation, public weaponization, or confirmed compromise scenarios.
Researcher notes
Primary evidence identifies parseOperands in the ARM64 assembler source path and links to a radare2 commit and issue. The bundle lacks CVSS, CWE, affected CPEs, and exploit-status detail, so avoid extrapolating beyond denial-of-service crash impact.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade radare2 to version 3.1.2 or later.
- Check radare2 project guidance and package advisories for downstream fixes.
- Run untrusted file analysis inside isolated sandboxes.
- Avoid automated processing of untrusted files with vulnerable radare2 builds.
- Monitor analysis workers for repeated crashes or abnormal restarts.
Validation and detection
- Inventory systems and containers using radare2.
- Confirm installed radare2 versions are not earlier than 3.1.2.
- Review malware-analysis and CI pipelines for radare2 usage.
- Check crash logs from analysis workers handling untrusted files.
- Verify package updates came from trusted repositories or vendor builds.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CVE-2018-20460 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Unknown
- CVSS
- Not scored
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS and timeline data
No CVSS vectors or timeline events were available in the normalized CVE source material.
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://github.com/radare/radare2/commit/df167c7db545953bb7f71c72e98e7a3ca0c793bfCVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/radare/radare2/issues/12376CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.