Cybersecurity specialists report the detection of multiple vulnerabilities in the popular Vim text editor. According to the report, successful exploitation of these flaws would allow threat actors to deploy multiple hacking tasks.
Below are brief descriptions of some of the reported vulnerabilities, in addition to their respective identification keys and scores assigned under the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
CVE-2022-0413: A use-after-free error would allow remote threat actors to use specially crafted files for arbitrary code execution on affected systems.
This is a highly severe vulnerability and received a CVSS score of 7.7/10.
CVE-2022-0156: A use-after-free error when processing lines within files would allow remote hackers to send specially crafted files in order to execute arbitrary code on victims’ systems.
This is a highly severe vulnerability and received a CVSS score of 7.7/10.
CVE-2022-0158: A boundary error when processing lines beginning with the “$” character would allow remote attackers to use specially crafted files to execute arbitrary code on victims’ systems.
This is a highly severe vulnerability and received a CVSS score of 7.7/10.
CVE-2022-0213: A boundary error when processing files would allow threat actors to trigger a heap-based buffer overflow to execute arbitrary code on the affected system.
This is a highly severe vulnerability and received a CVSS score of 7.7/10.
CVE-2022-0261: A boundary bug would allow threat actors to use specially crafted files to trigger a heap-based buffer overflow and execute arbitrary code on the affected system.
The flaw received a CVSS score of 7.7/10.
CVE-2022-0318: A boundary bug allows remote threat actors to trigger a heap-based buffer overflow and execute arbitrary code.
This flaw received a CVSS score of 7.7/10.
CVE-2022-0351: A boundary error when processing files would allow remote attackers to create a specially crafted file to execute arbitrary code on affected systems.
This is a highly severe vulnerability and received a CVSS score of 7.7/10.
CVE-2022-0359: A boundary error would allow a remote attacker to trigger a heap-based buffer overflow to execute arbitrary code.
This flaw received a CVSS score of 7.7/10.
CVE-2022-0696: A NULL pointer dereference error in Vim when switching tabs in the cmd line window would allow remote threat actors to perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.
The flaw received a CVSS score of 3.8/10.
CVE-2022-0685: Incorrect validation of inputs when processing multi-byte special characters would allow threat actors to use specially crafted files to block the application.
The flaw received a CVSS score of 3.8/10.
CVE-2022-0629: A boundary error when using many composition characters in the error message would allow unauthenticated remote threat actors to trigger a buffer overflow and execute arbitrary code on affected systems.
This is a highly severe vulnerability and received a CVSS score of 7.7/10.
CVE-2022-0572: A boundary error when repeatedly using the :retab function would allow remote threat actors to trigger a heap-based buffer overflow to execute arbitrary code on the affected system.
This flaw received a CVSS score of 7.7/10.
CVE-2022-0554: A boundary error when reading files would allow remote threat actors to use specially crafted files to crash the application.
The flaw received a CVSS score of 3.8/10.
CVE-2022-0443: A use-after-free error when using memory freed with :lopen and :bwipe would allow remote threat actors to execute arbitrary code on victims’ systems.
This is a highly severe vulnerability and received a CVSS score of 7.7/10.
CVE-2022-0417: A boundary error would allow remote threat actors to send specially crafted files to lock the affected application.
The flaw received a CVSS score of 3.8/10.
CVE-2022-0408: A boundary error when searching for grammatical suggestions would allow unauthenticated remote hackers to execute arbitrary code on victims’ systems using specially crafted files.
This flaw received a CVSS score of 7.7/10.
CVE-2022-0714: A boundary bug would allow remote attackers to trigger a heap-based buffer overflow for arbitrary code execution on the affected system.
This is a highly severe vulnerability and received a CVSS score of 7.7/10.
CVE-2021-4069: A use-after-free bug would allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on affected systems using specially crafted files.
This flaw received a CVSS score of 7.7/10.
CVE-2021-4166: A boundary condition would allow remote attackers to create specially crafted files to execute arbitrary code on affected systems.
This is a low-severity vulnerability and received a CVSS score of 2.7/10.
According to the report, the flaws reside in all versions of Vim prior to v8.2.4009.
While the flaws can be exploited by unauthenticated threat actors, so far no active exploitation attempts or any malware variant linked to this attack have been detected. Still, Vim users are advised to apply the necessary updates to fully mitigate the risk of exploitation.
To learn more about information security risks, malware variants, vulnerabilities and information technologies, feel free to access the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) websites.
He is a well-known expert in mobile security and malware analysis. He studied Computer Science at NYU and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2003. He is actively working as an anti-malware expert. He also worked for security companies like Kaspersky Lab. His everyday job includes researching about new malware and cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in mobile security and mobile vulnerabilities.
