NULL Pointer Dereference Affecting samtools/samtools package, versions [1.17,1.21.1)[1.22.0,1.22.2)[1.23.0,1.23.1)


Severity

Recommended
0.0
high
0
10

CVSS assessment by Snyk's Security Team. Learn more

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.02% (6th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-UNMANAGED-SAMTOOLSSAMTOOLS-15844870
  • published30 Mar 2026
  • disclosed18 Mar 2026
  • creditUnknown

Introduced: 18 Mar 2026

CVE-2026-31973  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-476  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade samtools/samtools to version 1.21.1, 1.22.2, 1.23.1 or higher.

Overview

Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to NULL Pointer Dereference in the cram-size command due to missing error handling after calling cram_decode_compression_header() function. An attacker can cause the application to crash by providing a specially crafted CRAM file that triggers a NULL pointer dereference.

CVSS Base Scores

version 4.0
version 3.1