Open Babel — Vulnerabilities & Security Advisories 14

Open Babel serves as a chemical toolbox for converting file formats between chemical software, enabling interoperability in computational chemistry and drug discovery. Historically, it has faced vulnerabilities including remote code execution, buffer overflows, and denial-of-service flaws, often stemming from improper parsing of input files. The project's 14 recorded CVEs highlight risks in handling untrusted chemical data structures, which could allow attackers to execute arbitrary code or crash applications. While no major public incidents have been widely documented, the consistent discovery of parsing-related vulnerabilities underscores the need for careful input validation when processing chemical files from untrusted sources.