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National Vulnerability Database

National Vulnerability Database

NVD

National Vulnerability Database
  1. Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-31972 Detail

Description

SAMtools is a program for reading, manipulating and writing bioinformatics file formats. The `mpileup` command outputs DNA sequences that have been aligned against a known reference. On each output line it writes the reference position, optionally the reference DNA base at that position (obtained from a separate file) and all of the DNA bases that aligned to that position. As the output is ordered by position, reference data that is no longer needed is discarded once it has been printed out. Under certain conditions the data could be discarded too early, leading to an attempt to read from a pointer to freed memory. This bug may allow information about program state to be leaked. It may also cause a program crash through an attempt to access invalid memory. This bug is fixed in versions 1.21.1 and 1.22. There is no workaround for this issue.


Metrics

 
NVD enrichment efforts reference publicly available information to associate vector strings. CVSS information contributed by other sources is also displayed.
CVSS 4.0 Severity and Vector Strings:

NIST CVSS score
NIST: NVD
N/A
NVD assessment not yet provided.

Nist CVSS score does not match with CNA score
CNA:  GitHub, Inc.
CVSS-B 6.9 MEDIUM
Vector:  CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools

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URL Source(s) Tag(s)
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/03/18/11 CVE
https://github.com/samtools/samtools/commit/3036eb9af945fcef359427a2d359855553da4adf GitHub, Inc.
https://github.com/samtools/samtools/security/advisories/GHSA-72c8-4jf3-f27p GitHub, Inc.

Weakness Enumeration

CWE-ID CWE Name Source
CWE-416 Use After Free GitHub, Inc.  

Change History

2 change records found show changes

Quick Info

CVE Dictionary Entry:
CVE-2026-31972
NVD Published Date:
03/18/2026
NVD Last Modified:
03/19/2026
Source:
GitHub, Inc.