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MEDIUM severity

Open Babel has an out-of-bounds read in CIF transform3d::DescribeAsStringGHSA-6xw4-2g22-26h8

MEDIUMFix: openbabel/openbabel#2862

GHSA-6xw4-2g22-26h8 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.4) Buffer Overflow vulnerability in openbabel. A fix is available for openbabel — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Also known asCVE-2026-2704PYSEC-2026-2774
Published
Updated
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Oct 24, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

No confirmed exploitation observed yet

  • CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-6xw4-2g22-26h8.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
1.0%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk+0.12%
Lower risk than most CVEs61th percentile — riskier than 61% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.49%0.98%1.47%0.0%1.0%Apr 26Aug 26Oct 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

GHSA-6xw4-2g22-26h8 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected
🐍openbabel

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

Summary

A memory-safety vulnerability in Open Babel's CIF file format parser allowed an out-of-bounds read when reading a crafted input file.

Details

The flaw was in OpenBabel::transform3d::DescribeAsString. A malformed symmetry-operation string caused the parser to read past the end of its internal buffer while formatting the description.

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 CIF file with the obabel tool, the OBConversion API, or any of the language bindings.

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/e23a224b Tracked in #2862.

A minimized reproducer for this CVE is checked in at test/files/fuzz_regress/cve-2026-2704.cif and is exercised on every CI build under ASAN+UBSAN by the fuzzregresstest harness.

Credit

Reported by Vedant Madane (@VedantMadane).

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
🐍PyPIopenbabelall versions3.2.0pip install --upgrade 'openbabel==3.2.0'

Affected Products

1 product · 1 configurations
Application
open babelopenbabel
≤ 3.1.1
range

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for openbabel, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update openbabel to 3.2.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-6xw4-2g22-26h8 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    Stop feeding it untrusted input: reject or quarantine files and payloads from unverified sources until you can upgrade, restrict accepted formats to the ones you actually need, and run the parsing or decoding step in a least-privileged sandbox or short-lived worker so a crash or corrupted read cannot reach the rest of the process.

Frequently Asked Questions

> ### Summary > > A memory-safety vulnerability in Open Babel's CIF file format parser > allowed an out-of-bounds read when reading a crafted input file. > > ### Details > > The flaw was in `OpenBabel::transform3d::DescribeAsString`. A malformed > symmetry-operation string caused the parser to read past the end of its > internal buffer while formatting the description. > > ### 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 vulnerabilit
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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Open Babel has an out-of-bounds read in CIF…