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Bug Report: Null Pointer Dereference in ChemKinFormat::ReadReactionQualifierLines #2829

Description

@ahuo1

Environment

  • OS: Ubuntu 22.04
  • Compiler: clang 13.0.1
  • Sanitizers: AddressSanitizer (ASan) + UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer (UBSan)

Build Instructions

export CC=clang-13
export CXX=clang++-13
export CXXFLAGS="${CXXFLAGS} -std=c++17 -stdlib=libstdc++ -fsanitize=address -O1 -g"
export CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fsanitize=address -O1 -g"
export LDFLAGS="${LDFLAGS} -fsanitize=address"
export LIB_FUZZING_ENGINE="-fsanitize=fuzzer"

sed -i 's/CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 11/CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17/g' CMakeLists.txt
sed -i 's/std::random/\/\/std::random/g' test/*.cpp

mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DBUILD_SHARED=OFF -DBUILD_MIXED=ON
make -j $(nproc)

Reproduction

Run the fuzzer with a crafted input file:

./fuzz_convert poc

Observed Behavior

Program crashes with ASan/UBSan report:

==1081242==ERROR: AddressSanitizer: SEGV on unknown address 0x000000000000 (pc 0x00000085e5ac bp 0x7ffd3faebe10 sp 0x7ffd3faebb00 T0)
==1081242==The signal is caused by a READ memory access.
==1081242==Hint: address points to the zero page.
    #0 0x85e5ac in std::__cxx11::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >::_M_data() const /usr/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/11/../../../../include/c++/11/bits/basic_string.h:195:28
    #1 0x85e5ac in std::__cxx11::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >::c_str() const /usr/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/11/../../../../include/c++/11/bits/basic_string.h:2321:16
    #2 0x85e5ac in OpenBabel::ChemKinFormat::ReadReactionQualifierLines(std::istream&, OpenBabel::OBReaction*) /root/openbabel/src/formats/chemkinformat.cpp:626:33
    #3 0x852319 in OpenBabel::ChemKinFormat::ReadMolecule(OpenBabel::OBBase*, OpenBabel::OBConversion*) /root/openbabel/src/formats/chemkinformat.cpp:207:8
    #4 0x86e92b in OpenBabel::ChemKinFormat::ReadChemObject(OpenBabel::OBConversion*) /root/openbabel/src/formats/chemkinformat.cpp:123:14
    #5 0x5b247b in OpenBabel::OBConversion::Convert() /root/openbabel/src/obconversion.cpp:542:30
    #6 0x5b140c in OpenBabel::OBConversion::Convert(std::istream*, std::ostream*) /root/openbabel/src/obconversion.cpp:478:17
    #7 0x5a5c18 in LLVMFuzzerTestOneInput /root/openbabel/test/fuzz/fuzz_convert.cpp:35:14
...

Root Cause Analysis

ChemKinFormat::ReadReactionQualifierLines assumes a non-null std::string when calling c_str() for token comparison/processing. With malformed input, a null pointer reaches this code path, leading to a null dereference.

The attached file contains a proof-of-concept.
poc.zip

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