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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.

PUBLISHED Reserved 2026-03-10 | Published 2026-03-18 | Updated 2026-03-19 | Assigner GitHub_M




MEDIUM: 6.9CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Problem types

CWE-416: Use After Free

Product status

< 1.21.1
affected

References

www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/03/18/11

github.com/...mtools/security/advisories/GHSA-72c8-4jf3-f27p

github.com/...ommit/3036eb9af945fcef359427a2d359855553da4adf

cve.org (CVE-2026-31972)

nvd.nist.gov (CVE-2026-31972)

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