CVE-2026-31973 MEDIUM

CVE-2026-31973: NULL pointer dereference in samtools cram-size

Vendor Samtools
Product samtools
Weakness CWE-476
Published March 18, 2026
Last update March 19, 2026

CVSS base score

6.9/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required None
User interaction None
Confidentiality
Integrity

CVSS vector

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

What the vulnerability does

01Description

SAMtools is a program for reading, manipulating and writing bioinformatics file formats. Starting in version 1.17, in the cram-size command, used to write information about how well CRAM files are compressed, a check to see if the `cram_decode_compression_header()` was missing. If the function returned an error, this could lead to a NULL pointer dereference. Exploiting this bug causes a NULL pointer dereference. Typically this will cause the program to crash. Versions 1.23.1, 1.22.2 and 1.21.1 include fixes for this issue. There is no workaround for this issue.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

March 18, 2026 CVE published
March 19, 2026 Record updated