Junglewise Threat Intelligence

CVE-2022-44451: Open Babel uninitialized pointer dereference in MSI atom parser

CVE-2022-44451 · Severity: high · CVSS 7.8 · Published 2026-07-01

Technologies: Open Babel Openbabel. Vendors: PyPI.

Executive brief

Open Babel, a widely used library for converting chemistry and molecular data formats, contains a memory safety flaw in its MSI file parser. An attacker could provide a specially crafted chemistry file that, when opened by a user or processed by an automated service, could lead to a program crash or potentially allow the attacker to execute unauthorized code. This affects various software and web services that integrate Open Babel for molecular data processing.

Technical details

A memory-safety vulnerability exists in Open Babel's MSI (Materials Studio) format parser due to an uninitialized pointer dereference (CWE-824). The flaw is located in the atom handling logic of the MSI reader, where a malformed record causes the parser to access an atom pointer that has not been initialized. Exploitation requires a victim to open a crafted MSI file using the obabel CLI tool, the OBConversion API, or any of its language bindings (Python, Ruby, Java, etc.). While the GitHub advisory lists a CVSS of 7.8 (Local), the NVD entry notes that Talos assigned a 9.8 (Network) score; however, the primary vector involves processing untrusted input files. The issue is fixed in version 3.2.0.

Affected products

  • Open Babel openbabel <= 3.1.1

Timeline

  • 2026-05-09: patched: Fix commit fa9a2d9a authored.
  • 2026-05-26: patched: Version 3.2.0 released.
  • 2026-07-01: advisory: GitHub Advisory published.

References

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