GNU Debugger (GDB) 8.0 and earlier fails to detect a negative length field in a DWARF section. A malformed section in an ELF binary or a core file can cause GDB to repeatedly allocate memory until a process limit is reached. This can, for example, impede efforts to analyze malware with GDB.

GNU Project Debugger (GDB) before 7.5, when .debuggdbscripts is defined, automatically loads certain files from the current working directory, which allows local users to gain privileges via crafted files such as Python scripts.