GHSA-8wq6-qh76-wpv9
Open Babel has heap buffer overflow in ChemKin ChemKinFormat::CheckSpecies
Details
### Summary
A memory-safety vulnerability in Open Babel's ChemKin parser caused a heap buffer overflow when reading a crafted input file.
### Details
The flaw was in `ChemKinFormat::CheckSpecies`. A malformed species record caused the parser to write past the end of a heap-allocated 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 ChemKin 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/af4a4212 Originally reported as #2830; fixes consolidated in #2913.
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 via OSS-Fuzz.
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Affected packages
References
- https://github.com/openbabel/openbabel/security/advisories/GHSA-8wq6-qh76-wpv9 [WEB]
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-10997 [ADVISORY]
- https://github.com/openbabel/openbabel/issues/2830 [WEB]
- https://github.com/openbabel/openbabel [PACKAGE]
- https://github.com/user-attachments/files/22318543/poc.zip [WEB]
- https://vuldb.com/?ctiid.325925 [WEB]
- https://vuldb.com/?id.325925 [WEB]
- https://vuldb.com/?submit.654062 [WEB]