GHSA-8qxc-57hf-hc9j
Open Babel has uninitialized pointer dereference in PQS pFormat
Packages
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
### Summary
A memory-safety vulnerability in Open Babel's PQS parser caused an
uninitialized pointer dereference when reading a crafted input file.
### Details
The flaw was in the `pFormat` handling of the PQS reader. A malformed
input caused the parser to dereference a format 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 PQS 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/2a7d2cda
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.
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.
- https://github.com/openbabel/openbabel/security/advisories/GHSA-8qxc-57hf-hc9j
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-46280
- https://github.com/openbabel/openbabel/commit/2a7d2cda8bd47daade2e555e34b69651a2e132ef
- https://github.com/openbabel/openbabel
- https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2022-1670
- https://www.talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2022-1670