🛡️ CVE-2026-31973 — samtools

🟠 CVSS 7.5 — High ✅ No Known Exploit CWE-476 NVD
7.5
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

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.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached over the network, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs no privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality none, integrity none, availability high.

Weakness class

CVE-2026-31973 is classified as CWE-476: NULL Pointer Dereference. A pointer that can be null is used without a check, crashing the process.

Affected software and timeline

Affected software: samtools. Published on 18 March 2026 and last revised on 17 June 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. A vendor advisory or fix has been published. Record sourced from NVD.

References

github.com
github.com
www.openwall.com

CVE-2026-31973 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity HIGH
CVSS Score 7.5
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE CWE-476
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2026-03-18
Updated 2026-08-11
Modified 2026-06-17

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
samtools — —

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More CVE 2026 advisories

Part of CVE 2026 in the advisory index.