CVE-2026-31972

Severity CVSS v4.0:

MEDIUM

Type:

CWE-416 Use After Free

Publication date:

18/03/2026

Last modified:

19/03/2026

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.

Impact

Vector 4.0

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 CVSS v4.0 Severity and Metrics:

Base Score: 6.90 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

Attack Vector (AV): Network
Attack Complexity (AC): Low
Attack Requirements (AT): None
Privileges Required (PR): None
User Interaction (UI): None
Confidentiality (VC): Low
Integrity (VI): None
Availability (VA): Low
Confidentiality (SC): None
Integrity (SI): None
Availability (SA): None

Base Score 4.0

6.90

Severity 4.0

MEDIUM

Vector 3.x

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H CVSS v3.1 Severity and Metrics:

Base Score: 9.80 CRITICAL
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack Vector (AV): Network
Attack Complexity (AC): Low
Privileges Required (PR): None
User Interaction (UI): None
Scope (S): Unchanged
Confidentiality (C): High
Integrity (I): High
Availability (A): High