Upstream information

CVE-2026-31972 at MITRE

Description

SAMtools is a program for reading, manipulating and writing bioinformatics file formats. The `mpileup` command outputs DNA sequences that have been aligned against a known reference. On each output line it writes the reference position, optionally the reference DNA base at that position (obtained from a separate file) and all of the DNA bases that aligned to that position. As the output is ordered by position, reference data that is no longer needed is discarded once it has been printed out. Under certain conditions the data could be discarded too early, leading to an attempt to read from a pointer to freed memory. This bug may allow information about program state to be leaked. It may also cause a program crash through an attempt to access invalid memory. This bug is fixed in versions 1.21.1 and 1.22. There is no workaround for this issue.

SUSE information

Overall state of this security issue: Does not affect SUSE products

This issue is currently rated as having critical severity.

CVSS v3 Scores
CVSS detail National Vulnerability Database
Base Score 9.8
Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack Vector Network
Attack Complexity Low
Privileges Required None
User Interaction None
Scope Unchanged
Confidentiality Impact High
Integrity Impact High
Availability Impact High
CVSSv3 Version 3.1
CVSS v4 Scores
CVSS detail CNA (GitHub)
Base Score 6.9
Vector CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
Attack Vector Network
Attack Complexity Low
Attack Requirements None
Privileges Required None
User Interaction None
Vulnerable System Confidentiality Impact Low
Vulnerable System Integrity Impact None
Vulnerable System Availability Impact Low
Subsequent System Confidentiality Impact None
Subsequent System Integrity Impact None
Subsequent System Availability Impact None
CVSSv4 Version 4.0
SUSE Bugzilla entry: 1259894 [NEW]

No SUSE Security Announcements cross referenced.

SUSE Timeline for this CVE

CVE page created: Thu Mar 19 00:00:07 2026
CVE page last modified: Thu Mar 19 22:48:22 2026