Vim CVEs & Vulnerabilities

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to 9.2.0699, Vim's Python omni-completion (runtime/autoload/python3complete.vim and the legacy pythoncomplete.vim) executes reconstructed function and class definitions from the current buffer with exec() as part of populating the completion dictionary. When reconstructing that source, each scope's docstring is inserted verbatim between triple quotes with no escaping, so a hostile buffer can break out of the triple-quoted literal and execute attacker-controlled Python during omni-completion. This vulnerability is fixed in 9.2.0699.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to 9.2.0698, the single-byte branch of spell_soundfold_sofo() in src/spell.c translates a word through a spell file's SOFO (sound-folding) byte map into a caller-owned result buffer. Its copy loop advances the output index ri with no upper bound and terminates only on the input NUL, writing one byte per input byte into the MAXWLEN-element stack buffer the caller provides. A word longer than MAXWLEN, passed to soundfold() (or reached via sound-based spell suggestion) while a SOFO-based spell language is active, therefore writes past the end of that buffer. This is a stack out-of-bounds write that corrupts the call frame and crashes the editor. This vulnerability is fixed in 9.2.0698.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. From 9.2.0320 until 9.2.0679, a crafted undo or swap file can store a virtual-text property whose offset and length point outside the line's property data. When Vim restores or displays such a line it converts the offset into a pointer and reads the virtual text without bounds checking, causing an out-of-bounds read that can crash Vim or disclose adjacent heap memory. This vulnerability is fixed in 9.2.0679.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. From 9.1.1784 until 9.2.0678, when the bundled zip plugin autoload/zip.vim falls back to PowerShell to browse, read, extract, update or delete entries in a zip archive, it builds the PowerShell command by inserting archive entry names that are quoted only for the shell, not for PowerShell. A crafted entry name can break out of the intended string context and cause PowerShell to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the user running Vim, triggered by opening, viewing or extracting the archive. This vulnerability is fixed in 9.2.0678.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to 9.2.0671, when Vim opens a file encrypted with the VimCrypt~04! or VimCrypt~05! method (xchacha20poly1305, requires the +sodium feature) whose body is shorter than a single libsodium secretstream header, an unsigned length calculation underflows and a subsequent decryption call reads far past the end of the input buffer, crashing Vim. This vulnerability is fixed in 9.2.0671.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to 9.2.0670, get_text_props() in src/textprop.c reads a uint16 property count stored inline after a line's text and returns it as the number of 32-byte textprop_T entries that follow. The only check is a floor that guarantees room for a single entry; the count is never checked against the amount of data actually present. A line that declares a large count while carrying little data causes consumers to read far past the end of the line buffer. Such a line can be delivered through a crafted undo file, leading to a crash. This vulnerability is fixed in 9.2.0670.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to 9.2.0663, a Vimscript code injection vulnerability exists in s:NetrwLocalRmFile() in the netrw plugin (runtime/pack/dist/opt/netrw/autoload/netrw.vim) when deleting a local file from the browser. A filename derived from the buffer's directory listing is interpolated into an Ex command line passed to :execute with only the backslash character escaped, allowing a crafted filename containing a bar (|) to terminate the intended command and execute arbitrary Vimscript, including shell commands via :call system() and :!. This vulnerability is fixed in 9.2.0663.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to 9.2.0662, the dump_prefixes() function in src/spell.c walks a spell-file prefix trie iteratively with a depth counter while dumping the prefixes that apply to a word. The counter is bounded only by the trie structure itself; it is never checked against the size of the fixed MAXWLEN-element stack arrays it indexes (prefix[], arridx[], curi[]). A crafted .spl file, loaded when the user dumps the word list, can drive the descent arbitrarily deep, so the function writes past the end of those arrays. This is a stack out-of-bounds write that corrupts the call frame and crashes the editor. This vulnerability is fixed in 9.2.0662.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to 9.2.0653, the tree_count_words() function in src/spellfile.c fills in the word-count fields of a spell-file word trie by walking it iteratively with a depth counter. The counter is bounded only by the trie structure itself; it is never checked against the size of the fixed MAXWLEN-element stack arrays it indexes (arridx[], curi[], wordcount[]). A crafted .spl/.sug file pair, loaded when the user invokes spell suggestion, can drive the descent arbitrarily deep, so the function writes past the end of those arrays. This is a stack out-of-bounds write that corrupts the call frame and crashes the editor. This vulnerability is fixed in 9.2.0653.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to version 9.2.0597, Vim's Python omni-completion executes reconstructed function and class definitions from the current buffer with exec() as part of populating the completion dictionary. Python evaluates function default values, parameter annotations, and class base expressions at definition time, so a hostile buffer can execute attacker-controlled Python expressions during omni-completion. The existing g:pythoncomplete_allow_import mitigation (GHSA-52mc-rq6p-rc7c) does not cover this path, because the attacker-controlled code is not a harvested import/from statement. This issue has been patched in version 9.2.0597.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to version 9.2.0565, the update_snapshot() function in src/terminal.c copies the visible terminal screen into the scrollback buffer when a snapshot is taken. For each screen cell it walks the cell's chars[] array with no upper bound, stopping only when it encounters a NUL terminator. When a cell legitimately fills all VTERM_MAX_CHARS_PER_CELL (6) slots — a base character plus five combining marks — the bundled libvterm returns the array without a terminating NUL, so the loop reads past the fixed six-element array and appends the out-of-bounds values to a buffer reserved for only six characters. A program whose output is rendered inside a :terminal window can trigger this with a short byte sequence and no Vim scripting, leading to a crash. This issue has been patched in version 9.2.0565.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to version 9.2.0561, the Python omni-completion script in python3complete.vim for Vim with the +python3 interpreter enabled (and the legacy pythoncomplete.vim for builds with the +python interpreter) executes the import and from statements found in the current buffer through Python's import machinery. Because the buffer's working directory is on sys.path, opening a hostile .py file with a sibling Python package and invoking omni-completion runs that package's top-level code as the editing user. This issue has been patched in version 9.2.0561.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to version 9.2.0496, a code injection vulnerability exists in s:stepmatch() in the cucumber filetype plugin (runtime/ftplugin/cucumber.vim) on Vim builds with +ruby support. Step-definition patterns read from .rb files under the repository's features/*/ or stories/*/ directories are embedded into a Ruby Kernel.eval argument without sufficient escaping, allowing a crafted pattern in an attacker-controlled repository to execute arbitrary Ruby (and through it arbitrary shell commands) when the user invokes a step-jump mapping ([d, ]d). This issue has been patched in version 9.2.0496.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to version 9.2.0495, a Vimscript code injection vulnerability exists in s:NetrwBookHistSave() in the netrw plugin (runtime/pack/dist/opt/netrw/autoload/netrw.vim) when serializing browsed directory paths to the history file ~/.vim/.netrwhist. A directory name derived from the filesystem is interpolated into a single-quoted Vimscript string literal without escaping embedded single quotes, allowing a crafted directory name to break out of the string context and execute arbitrary Vimscript, including shell commands via system() and :!, the next time the history file is sourced. This issue has been patched in version 9.2.0495.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to 9.2.0479, a command injection vulnerability exists in tar#Vimuntar() in runtime/autoload/tar.vim when decompressing .tgz archives on Unix-like systems. The function builds :!gunzip and :!gzip -d commands using shellescape(tartail) without the {special} flag, allowing a crafted archive filename to trigger Vim cmdline-special expansion and execute shell commands in the user's context. This vulnerability is fixed in 9.2.0479.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to version 9.2.0435, an OS command injection vulnerability exists in Vim's :find command-line completion. When the path option contains backtick-enclosed shell commands, those commands are executed during file name completion. Because the path option lacks the P_SECURE flag, it can be set from a modeline, allowing an attacker who controls the contents of a file to execute arbitrary shell commands when the user opens that file in Vim and triggers :find completion. This issue has been patched in version 9.2.0435.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to version 9.2.0383, an OS command injection vulnerability exists in the netrw standard plugin bundled with Vim. By inducing a user to open a crafted URL (e.g., using the sftp:// or file:// protocol handlers), an attacker can execute arbitrary shell commands with the privileges of the Vim process. This issue has been patched in version 9.2.0383.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to 9.2.0357, A command injection vulnerability exists in Vim's tag file processing. When resolving a tag, the filename field from the tags file is passed through wildcard expansion to resolve environment variables and wildcards. If the filename field contains backtick syntax (e.g., `command`), Vim executes the embedded command via the system shell with the full privileges of the running user.

Vim before 9.2.0272 allows code execution that happens immediately upon opening a crafted file in the default configuration, because %{expr} injection occurs with tabpanel lacking P_MLE.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to version 9.2.0202, a command injection vulnerability exists in Vim's glob() function on Unix-like systems. By including a newline character (\n) in a pattern passed to glob(), an attacker may be able to execute arbitrary shell commands. This vulnerability depends on the user's 'shell' setting. This issue has been patched in version 9.2.0202.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. From 9.1.0011 to before 9.2.0137, Vim's NFA regex compiler, when encountering a collection containing a combining character as the endpoint of a character range (e.g. [0-0\u05bb]), incorrectly emits the composing bytes of that character as separate NFA states. This corrupts the NFA postfix stack, resulting in NFA_START_COLL having a NULL out1 pointer. When nfa_max_width() subsequently traverses the compiled NFA to estimate match width for the look-behind assertion, it dereferences state->out1->out without a NULL check, causing a segmentation fault. This vulnerability is fixed in 9.2.0137.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to version 9.2.0078, a stack-buffer-overflow occurs in `build_stl_str_hl()` when rendering a statusline with a multi-byte fill character on a very wide terminal. Version 9.2.0078 patches the issue.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Versions prior to 9.2.0077 have a heap-buffer-overflow and a segmentation fault (SEGV) exist in Vim's swap file recovery logic. Both are caused by unvalidated fields read from crafted pointer blocks within a swap file. Version 9.2.0077 fixes the issue.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to version 9.2.0076, a heap-based buffer overflow WRITE and an out-of-bounds READ exist in Vim's terminal emulator when processing maximum combining characters from Unicode supplementary planes. Version 9.2.0076 fixes the issue.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to version 9.2.0075, a heap-based buffer underflow exists in Vim's Emacs-style tags file parsing logic. When processing a malformed tags file where a delimiter appears at the start of a line, Vim attempts to read memory immediately preceding the allocated buffer. Version 9.2.0075 fixes the issue.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to version 9.2.0074, a heap-based buffer overflow out-of-bounds read exists in Vim's Emacs-style tags file parsing logic. When processing a malformed tags file, Vim can be tricked into reading up to 7 bytes beyond the allocated memory boundary. Version 9.2.0074 fixes the issue.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to version 9.2.0073, an OS command injection vulnerability exists in the `netrw` standard plugin bundled with Vim. By inducing a user to open a crafted URL (e.g., using the `scp://` protocol handler), an attacker can execute arbitrary shell commands with the privileges of the Vim process. Version 9.2.0073 fixes the issue.

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to 9.1.2148, a stack buffer overflow vulnerability exists in Vim's NetBeans integration when processing the specialKeys command, affecting Vim builds that enable and use the NetBeans feature. The Stack buffer overflow exists in special_keys() (in src/netbeans.c). The while (*tok) loop writes two bytes per iteration into a 64-byte stack buffer (keybuf) with no bounds check. A malicious NetBeans server can overflow keybuf with a single specialKeys command. The issue has been fixed as of Vim patch v9.1.2148.