{"id":"CVE-2022-42885","title":"Open Babel has uninitialized pointer dereference in GRO residue parser","summary":"Open Babel has uninitialized pointer dereference in GRO residue parser","severity":"high","cvss":7.8,"cwe":["CWE-824"],"vendor":"openbabel","product":"openbabel","ecosystem":"pip","affected":["openbabel < 3.2.0"],"patched":["openbabel 3.2.0"],"published":"2026-07-01","updated":"2026-07-01","source":"GHSA","sourceUrl":"https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-mw5r-wq2m-397c","references":[{"url":"https://github.com/openbabel/openbabel/security/advisories/GHSA-mw5r-wq2m-397c"},{"url":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-42885"},{"url":"https://github.com/openbabel/openbabel/commit/fa9a2d9a2eb75154b7a884dfe679ff41a8f9c547"},{"url":"https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2022-1668"},{"url":"https://www.talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2022-1668"},{"url":"https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-mw5r-wq2m-397c"}],"tags":["ghsa","pip"],"epss":0.00802,"epssPercentile":0.5467,"ingestedAt":"2026-07-01T18:15:20.582Z","slug":"CVE-2022-42885","body":"## Overview\n\n### Summary\n\nA memory-safety vulnerability in Open Babel's GRO parser caused an\nuninitialized pointer dereference when reading a crafted input file.\n\n### Details\n\nThe flaw was in the residue handling of the GRO reader. A malformed\nrecord caused the parser to use a residue pointer that had never been\ninitialized.\n\n### Impact\n\nOpen Babel is a C++ library and CLI used to read and write chemistry\nfile formats; it is shipped by Linux distributions and embedded in\nservices that may parse untrusted input. Triggering this vulnerability\nrequires the victim to open a malicious GRO file with the `obabel`\ntool, the `OBConversion` API, or any of the language bindings (Python,\nRuby, Java, R, Perl, C#, PHP).\n\n### Affected versions\n\nAll releases up to and including 3.1.1.\n\n### Patched version\n\n3.2.0 (released 2026-05-26).\n\n### Patch\n\nFix commit: https://github.com/openbabel/openbabel/commit/fa9a2d9a\n\nA minimized reproducer for this CVE is checked in under\n`test/files/fuzz_regress/` and is exercised on every CI build under\nASAN+UBSAN by the `fuzzregresstest` harness.\n\n### Credit\n\nReported by Cisco TALOS.\n\n## Affected packages\n\n- `openbabel < 3.2.0`\n\n## Remediation\n\nUpgrade to a patched release:\n\n- `openbabel 3.2.0`","depth":"twilight","depthScore":43,"depthScoreParts":{"impact":42.9,"likelihood":0.2,"exploitation":0,"ransomware":0},"changes":[]}