GHSA-5rff-8f7c-8jmw
Open Babel has out-of-bounds write in ORCA nAtoms parser (second variant)
Details
### Summary
A memory-safety vulnerability in Open Babel's ORCA parser allowed an out-of-bounds write when reading a crafted input file.
### Details
A second variant of the `nAtoms` out-of-bounds write in the ORCA reader: a different malformed-input path produced the same class of write past the end of the destination buffer.
### 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 ORCA 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/b239d06e
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.
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Affected packages
References
- https://github.com/openbabel/openbabel/security/advisories/GHSA-5rff-8f7c-8jmw [WEB]
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-46290 [ADVISORY]
- https://github.com/openbabel/openbabel/commit/b239d06eb724bb684eea0040e9d87cf07072b081 [WEB]
- https://github.com/openbabel/openbabel [PACKAGE]
- https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2022-1665 [WEB]
- https://www.talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2022-1665 [WEB]