GHSA-mw5r-wq2m-397c CVE-2022-42885 PYSEC-2026-2787
Open Babel has uninitialized pointer dereference in GRO residue parser
- Severity
- 7.8 / 10
- High · CVSS 3.1
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 0.80%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 56.66% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-824 Access of Uninitialized Pointer
- Fix
3.2.0- Upgrade openbabel to this version or later
Description
Summary
A memory-safety vulnerability in Open Babel's GRO parser caused an uninitialized pointer dereference when reading a crafted input file.
Details
The flaw was in the residue handling of the GRO reader. A malformed record caused the parser to use a residue pointer that had never been initialized.
Impact
Open Babel is a C++ library and CLI used to read and write chemistry
file formats; it is shipped by Linux distributions and embedded in
services that may parse untrusted input. Triggering this vulnerability
requires the victim to open a malicious GRO file with the obabel
tool, the OBConversion API, or any of the language bindings (Python,
Ruby, Java, R, Perl, C#, PHP).
Affected versions
All releases up to and including 3.1.1.
Patched version
3.2.0 (released 2026-05-26).
Patch
Fix commit: https://github.com/openbabel/openbabel/commit/fa9a2d9a
A minimized reproducer for this CVE is checked in under
test/files/fuzz_regress/ and is exercised on every CI build under
ASAN+UBSAN by the fuzzregresstest harness.
Credit
Reported by Cisco TALOS.
Affected versions
PyPI
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| openbabel | < 3.2.0 |
3.2.0 |
How to fix
Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.
openbabel PyPI → 3.2.0
- pip
pip install --upgrade "openbabel>=3.2.0"- poetry
poetry add "openbabel>=3.2.0"- uv
uv add "openbabel>=3.2.0"
Severity breakdown
CVSS 3.1 7.8
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Attack vector
- Local
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
Weakness
CWE-824: Access of Uninitialized Pointer
The product accesses or uses a pointer that has not been initialized.
References
Advisories
Packages
Other links
Timeline
- Published
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| GHSA-55f6-pf8r-c2f4 Open Babel has out-of-bounds write in MOPAC translationVectors[] (UNIT CELL TRANSLATION) | High | Also affects openbabel |
| GHSA-f8h2-c479-vqxf Open Babel has out-of-bounds write in MSI translationVectors[] | High | Also affects openbabel |
| GHSA-mjmg-352j-f456 Open Babel has out-of-bounds write in MOPAC IN translationVectors[] (Tv atom) | High | Also affects openbabel |
| GHSA-7h6r-6p76-68c9 Open Babel has out-of-bounds write in MOPAC translationVectors[] (FINAL POINT) | High | Also affects openbabel |
| GHSA-jg3h-pv7c-4f9c Open Babel has out-of-bounds write in Gaussian translationVectors[] | High | Also affects openbabel |
| GHSA-5rff-8f7c-8jmw Open Babel has out-of-bounds write in ORCA nAtoms parser (second variant) | High | Also affects openbabel |
| GHSA-rj4c-r689-cm87 Open Babel has out-of-bounds write in ORCA nAtoms parser | High | Also affects openbabel |
| GHSA-8qxc-57hf-hc9j Open Babel has uninitialized pointer dereference in PQS pFormat | High | Also affects openbabel |
MergeHarbor checks every repository's dependencies against this database, ranks what matters by exploitability and reachability, routes it to the owning team and opens the fix pull request.
Check your repos with MergeHarbor