VCFTools vcftools prior to version 0.1.15 is affected by: Use-after-free. The impact is: Denial of Service or possibly other impact (eg. code execution or information disclosure). The component is: The header::add_FILTER_descriptor method in header.cpp. The attack vector is: The victim must open a specially crafted VCF file.
The product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.