CVE-2024-43790: vim Heap Overflow — Fix

Description

Vim is an open source command line text editor. When performing a search and displaying the search-count message is disabled (:set shm+=S), the search pattern is displayed at the bottom of the screen in a buffer (msgbuf). When right-left mode (:set rl) is enabled, the search pattern is reversed. This happens by allocating a new buffer. If the search pattern contains some ASCII NUL characters, the buffer allocated will be smaller than the original allocated buffer (because for allocating the reversed buffer, the strlen() function is called, which only counts until it notices an ASCII NUL byte ) and thus the original length indicator is wrong. This causes an overflow when accessing characters inside the msgbuf by the previously (now wrong) length of the msgbuf. The issue has been fixed as of Vim patch v9.1.0689.

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CVSS v3.1 Score

4.5

MEDIUM

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

Weakness Type (CWE)

CWE-122 CWE-122

Affected Products

Vendor	Product	Versions
vim	vim	9.1.0425 — 9.1.0689
netapp	bootstrap_os	All
netapp	hci_compute_node	All

References

Advisories & Patches

https://github.com/vim/vim/commit/cacb6693c10bb19f28a50eca47bc https://github.com/vim/vim/security/advisories/GHSA-v2x2-cjcg-f9jm

Other References

https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20240920-0005/

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2024-43790? +

Vim is an open source command line text editor. When performing a search and displaying the search-count message is disabled (:set shm+=S), the search pattern is displayed at the bottom of the screen in a buffer (msgbuf). When right-left mode (:set rl) is enabled, the search pattern is reversed. This happens by allocating a new buffer. If the search pattern contains some ASCII NUL characters, the buffer allocated will be smaller than the original allocated buffer (because for allocating the reversed buffer, the strlen() function is called, which only counts until it notices an ASCII NUL byte ) and thus the original length indicator is wrong. This causes an overflow when accessing characters inside the msgbuf by the previously (now wrong) length of the msgbuf. The issue has been fixed as of Vim patch v9.1.0689. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 4.5 (MEDIUM).

How severe is CVE-2024-43790? +

CVE-2024-43790 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 4.5 out of 10, rated MEDIUM. This is a medium-severity vulnerability that should be remediated as part of regular maintenance.

What products are affected by CVE-2024-43790? +

CVE-2024-43790 affects products from netapp, vim, specifically: bootstrap_os, hci_compute_node, vim. Check the affected products table above for specific version ranges.

How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2024-43790? +

You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.

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