Bug 2448755 (CVE-2026-31963) - CVE-2026-31963 htslib: HTSlib: Arbitrary code execution via crafted CRAM file
Summary: CVE-2026-31963 htslib: HTSlib: Arbitrary code execution via crafted CRAM file
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-31963
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
high
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On: 2448837 2448838 2448839 2448840 2448841 2448842
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-03-18 19:03 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-03-18 20:40 UTC (History)
0 users

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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-03-18 19:03:26 UTC
HTSlib 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.


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