CVE-2026-73078
HighCVSS 8.8Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk22th percentile - higher than 22% of all known CVEs
Summary
Vim, an open source command line text editor, prior to 9.2.0840 has a vulnerability in runtime/plugin/netrwPlugin.vim and runtime/pack/dist/opt/netrw/autoload/netrw.vim where Bookmarks, History, and Targets menu entries are constructed by interpolating attacker-controlled directory paths into executed :menu commands. Functions s:NetrwBookmarkMenu(), s:NetrwTgtMenu(), g:netrw_menu_escape, EX_TRLBAR, and netrw#MakeTgt() fail to neutralize the | command separator or single quotes at five construction sites, allowing a crafted path browsed or bookmarked in GUI Vim to execute arbitrary Ex and operating-system commands. The issue is fixed in version 9.2.0840.
Risk Assessment
An attacker can exploit this to execute arbitrary commands on the victim's system if the user browses or bookmarks a malicious path in GUI Vim. This can lead to full system compromise.
Recommendation
Update Vim to version 9.2.0840 or later. Also avoid browsing unknown directories in GUI Vim.
Other vulnerabilities in Vim
See all- CVE-2026-41411Medium
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; if it contains backtick syntax (e.g., `command`), Vim executes the embedded command via the system shell with the full privileges of the running user.
- CVE-2026-28422Low
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.
- CVE-2026-28421Medium
Vim versions prior to 9.2.0077 have a heap-buffer-overflow and a segmentation fault (SEGV) in the swap file recovery logic. Both are caused by unvalidated fields read from crafted pointer blocks within a swap file.
- CVE-2026-28420Medium
Vim, an open-source command-line text editor, prior to version 9.2.0076 contains a heap-based buffer overflow write and an out-of-bounds read in its terminal emulator when processing maximum combining characters from Unicode supplementary planes. Version 9.2.0076 fixes the issue.
- CVE-2026-28419Medium
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.
- CVE-2026-28418Medium
Vim is vulnerable to a heap-based buffer overflow out-of-bounds read in its Emacs-style tags file parsing logic prior to version 9.2.0074. When processing a malformed tags file, Vim can read up to 7 bytes beyond the allocated memory boundary. Version 9.2.0074 fixes the issue.
- CVE-2026-28417Medium
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.
- CVE-2026-26269Medium
A stack buffer overflow vulnerability exists in Vim's NetBeans integration when processing the specialKeys command. A malicious NetBeans server can overflow the 64-byte keybuf with a single specialKeys command. The issue is fixed in Vim patch v9.1.2148.
- CVE-2024-22667High
Vim before 9.0.2142 has a stack-based buffer overflow because did_set_langmap in map.c calls sprintf to write to the error buffer passed down to the option callback functions.
- CVE-2017-11109High
Vim 8.0 allows attackers to cause a denial of service (invalid free) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted source (aka -S) file.
Original NVD description (English source)
Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to 9.2.0840, runtime/plugin/netrwPlugin.vim loads netrw and runtime/pack/dist/opt/netrw/autoload/netrw.vim constructs Bookmarks, History, and Targets menu entries by interpolating attacker-controlled directory paths into executed :menu commands. s:NetrwBookmarkMenu(), s:NetrwTgtMenu(), g:netrw_menu_escape, EX_TRLBAR, and netrw#MakeTgt() fail to neutralize the | command separator or single quotes at five construction sites, allowing a crafted path browsed or bookmarked in GUI Vim to execute arbitrary Ex and operating-system commands. This issue is fixed in version 9.2.0840.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS

