Junglewise Threat Intelligence

CVE-2022-43607: Open Babel out-of-bounds write in MOL2 attribute/value parser

CVE-2022-43607 · Severity: high · CVSS 7.8 · Published 2026-07-01

Technologies: openbabel (PyPI), Open Babel. Vendors: PyPI.

Executive brief

Open Babel, a widely used library for converting chemistry and molecular data files, contains a memory safety flaw in its MOL2 file parser. If a user or automated service processes a specially crafted chemistry file, an attacker could potentially execute malicious code or crash the application. This affects researchers and organizations using Open Babel's command-line tools or its programming interfaces in Python, Java, and other languages.

Technical details

An out-of-bounds write vulnerability exists in Open Babel's MOL2 format parser within the `ReadMolecule` function in `mol2format.cpp`. The flaw is located in the attribute/value parsing logic where `sscanf` is used to read data into fixed-size 32-byte buffers (`attr` and `val`) without sufficient bounds checking. By providing a crafted MOL2 file with over-long attribute or value strings, an attacker can overflow these buffers. This can lead to memory corruption and arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability can be triggered via the `obabel` CLI tool, the `OBConversion` API, or any language bindings. A patch is available in version 3.2.0.

Affected products

  • Open Babel Open Babel <= 3.1.1

Timeline

  • 2022-10-24: other: Vulnerability discovered/assigned
  • 2023-07-21: disclosed: Initial Talos report published
  • 2026-05-26: patched: Version 3.2.0 released
  • 2026-07-01: advisory: GitHub Advisory published

References

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