CVE-2026-31963

NameCVE-2026-31963
DescriptionHTSlib is a library for reading and writing bioinformatics file formats. CRAM is a compressed format which stores DNA sequence alignment data. As one method of removing redundant data, CRAM uses reference-based compression so that instead of storing the full sequence for each alignment record it stores a location in an external reference sequence along with a list of differences to the reference at that location as a sequence of "features". When decoding these features, an out-by-one error in a test for CRAM features that appear beyond the extent of the CRAM record sequence could result in an invalid write of one attacker-controlled byte beyond the end of a heap buffer. Exploiting this bug causes a heap buffer overflow. If a user opens a file crafted to exploit this issue, it could lead to the program crashing, or overwriting of data and heap structures in ways not expected by the program. It may be possible to use this to obtain arbitrary code execution. Versions 1.23.1, 1.22.2 and 1.21.1 include fixes for this issue. There is no workaround for this issue.
SourceCVE (at NVD; CERT, ENISA, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Debian ELTS, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source PackageReleaseVersionStatus
htslib (PTS)bullseye1.11-4vulnerable
bookworm1.16+ds-3vulnerable
trixie1.21+ds-1vulnerable
forky, sid1.22.1+ds2-1vulnerable

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

PackageTypeReleaseFixed VersionUrgencyOriginDebian Bugs
htslibsource(unstable)(unfixed)

Notes

https://github.com/samtools/htslib/security/advisories/GHSA-qgqh-h2q9-7w3c
Fixed by: https://github.com/samtools/htslib/commit/8bcc9907be0f945ddc31796d64f078fa05456acd (1.23.1)

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