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Unrated severityNVD Advisory· Published Jun 27, 2022· Updated Aug 3, 2024

Heap-based Buffer Overflow in vim/vim

CVE-2022-2207

Description

A heap-based buffer overflow in Vim prior to 8.2 allows attackers to cause a denial of service or potentially execute arbitrary code via crafted input.

AI Insight

LLM-synthesized narrative grounded in this CVE's description and references.

A heap-based buffer overflow in Vim prior to 8.2 allows attackers to cause a denial of service or potentially execute arbitrary code via crafted input.

Vulnerability

A heap-based buffer overflow exists in the Vim text editor (and gVim) in versions prior to 8.2. The vulnerability occurs when the editor processes specially crafted input files or sequences, leading to memory corruption on the heap. This issue is present in app-editors/vim, app-editors/gvim, and app-editors/vim-core packages and affects all versions before the fix was introduced. [3][4]

Exploitation

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must convince a user to open a malicious file or input crafted commands within Vim. The attacker does not require any special privileges; the attack is triggered by the user action. The heap overflow occurs during parsing of the malicious input, which may not require any additional configuration if default settings are used.

Impact

Successful exploitation of this heap-based buffer overflow can lead to a denial of service (Vim crash) and potentially arbitrary code execution, depending on the attacker's payload and the environment. The vulnerability is classified as high severity (CVSS score not provided but typical for such overflows). The attacker's code would run with the privileges of the user running Vim, possibly allowing further system compromise.

Mitigation

There is no known workaround at this time. The fix is included in Vim version 8.2 and later. Gentoo Linux users should upgrade to >=app-editors/vim-9.0.0060 (or the latest patched version >=9.0.1157 for some packages) as recommended in the Gentoo security advisories GLSA 202208-32 and GLSA 202305-16. [3][4]

References
  1. Multiple Vulnerabilities (GLSA 202208-32) — Gentoo security
  2. Multiple Vulnerabilities (GLSA 202305-16) — Gentoo security

AI Insight generated on May 27, 2026. Synthesized from this CVE's description and the cited reference URLs; citations are validated against the source bundle.

Affected products

39

Patches

0

No patches discovered yet.

Vulnerability mechanics

No source-code context for this CVE — mechanics is only generated when we can read the actual fix diff. Without that, the four sections (root cause, attack vector, affected code, fix) would be speculation rather than analysis.

References

6

News mentions

0

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