CVE-2022-46280

Affected: Open Babel, openbabel open_babel

A use of uninitialized pointer vulnerability exists in the PQS format pFormat functionality of Open Babel 3.1.1 and master commit 530dbfa3. A specially crafted malformed file can lead to arbitrary code execution. An attacker can provide a malicious file to trigger this vulnerability.

GHSA-8qxc-57hf-hc9j — Open Babel has uninitialized pointer dereference in PQS pFormat

Affected: PyPI: openbabel

### Summary

A memory-safety vulnerability in Open Babel's PQS parser caused an uninitialized pointer dereference when reading a crafted input file.

### Details

The flaw was in the `pFormat` handling of the PQS reader. A malformed input caused the parser to dereference a format pointer that had never been initialized.

### Impact

Open Babel is a C++ library and CLI used to read and write chemistry file formats; it is shipped by Linux distributions and embedded in services that may parse untrusted input. Triggering this vulnerability requires the victim to open a malicious PQS file with the `obabel` tool, the `OBConversion` API, or any of the language bindings (Python, Ruby, Java, R, Perl, C#, PHP).

### Affected versions

All releases up to and including 3.1.1.

### Patched version

3.2.0 (released 2026-05-26).

### Patch

Fix commit: https://github.com/openbabel/openbabel/commit/2a7d2cda

A minimized reproducer for this CVE is checked in under `test/files/fuzz_regress/` and is exercised on every CI build under ASAN+UBSAN by the `fuzzregresstest` harness.

### Credit

Reported by Cisco TALOS.

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CVE-2022-46280

GHSA-8qxc-57hf-hc9j — Open Babel has uninitialized pointer dereference in PQS pFormat