UBUNTU-CVE-2023-48706 (CVE-2023-48706)

Vulnerability from osv_ubuntu – Published: 2023-11-22 22:15 – Updated: 2025-09-08 16:56 – Source website
VLAI
Details

Vim is a UNIX editor that, prior to version 9.0.2121, has a heap-use-after-free vulnerability. When executing a :s command for the very first time and using a sub-replace-special atom inside the substitution part, it is possible that the recursive :s call causes free-ing of memory which may later then be accessed by the initial :s command. The user must intentionally execute the payload and the whole process is a bit tricky to do since it seems to work only reliably for the very first :s command. It may also cause a crash of Vim. Version 9.0.2121 contains a fix for this issue.

Severity
4.7 (Medium)
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
3.6 (Low)
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L
N/A (UNKNOWN)
medium
References
To clipboard 

{
  "affected": [
    {
      "ecosystem_specific": {
        "availability": "No subscription required",
        "binaries": [
          {
            "binary_name": "vim",
            "binary_version": "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.15"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-athena",
            "binary_version": "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.15"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-common",
            "binary_version": "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.15"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-gtk",
            "binary_version": "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.15"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-gtk3",
            "binary_version": "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.15"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-gui-common",
            "binary_version": "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.15"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-nox",
            "binary_version": "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.15"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-runtime",
            "binary_version": "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.15"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-tiny",
            "binary_version": "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.15"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "xxd",
            "binary_version": "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.15"
          }
        ]
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Ubuntu:22.04:LTS",
        "name": "vim",
        "purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/vim@2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.15?arch=source\u0026distro=jammy"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.15"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ],
      "versions": [
        "2:8.2.2434-3ubuntu3",
        "2:8.2.2434-3ubuntu4",
        "2:8.2.3565-1ubuntu1",
        "2:8.2.3565-1ubuntu2",
        "2:8.2.3565-1ubuntu3",
        "2:8.2.3565-1ubuntu5",
        "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu1",
        "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2",
        "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.1",
        "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.3",
        "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.4",
        "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.5",
        "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.7",
        "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.8",
        "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.9",
        "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.10",
        "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.11",
        "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.12",
        "2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.13"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ecosystem_specific": {
        "availability": "No subscription required",
        "binaries": [
          {
            "binary_name": "vim",
            "binary_version": "2:9.0.2116-1ubuntu2"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-athena",
            "binary_version": "2:9.0.2116-1ubuntu2"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-common",
            "binary_version": "2:9.0.2116-1ubuntu2"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-gtk3",
            "binary_version": "2:9.0.2116-1ubuntu2"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-gui-common",
            "binary_version": "2:9.0.2116-1ubuntu2"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-motif",
            "binary_version": "2:9.0.2116-1ubuntu2"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-nox",
            "binary_version": "2:9.0.2116-1ubuntu2"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-runtime",
            "binary_version": "2:9.0.2116-1ubuntu2"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "vim-tiny",
            "binary_version": "2:9.0.2116-1ubuntu2"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "xxd",
            "binary_version": "2:9.0.2116-1ubuntu2"
          }
        ]
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Ubuntu:24.04:LTS",
        "name": "vim",
        "purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/vim@2:9.0.2116-1ubuntu2?arch=source\u0026distro=noble"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "2:9.0.2116-1ubuntu2"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ],
      "versions": [
        "2:9.0.1672-1ubuntu2",
        "2:9.0.2087-1ubuntu1",
        "2:9.0.2116-1ubuntu1"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [],
  "details": "Vim is a UNIX editor that, prior to version 9.0.2121, has a heap-use-after-free vulnerability. When executing a `:s` command for the very first time and using a sub-replace-special atom inside the substitution part, it is possible that the recursive `:s` call causes free-ing of memory which may later then be accessed by the initial `:s` command. The user must intentionally execute the payload and the whole process is a bit tricky to do since it seems to work only reliably for the very first :s command. It may also cause a crash of Vim. Version 9.0.2121 contains a fix for this issue.",
  "id": "UBUNTU-CVE-2023-48706",
  "modified": "2025-09-08T16:56:35Z",
  "published": "2023-11-22T22:15:00Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-48706"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://github.com/vim/vim/security/advisories/GHSA-c8qm-x72m-q53q"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://github.com/vim/vim/pull/13552"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://github.com/gandalf4a/crash_report/blob/main/vim/vim_huaf"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/11/22/3"
    },
    {
      "type": "ADVISORY",
      "url": "https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-6557-1"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-48706"
    }
  ],
  "related": [
    "USN-6557-1"
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.7.0",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    },
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    },
    {
      "score": "medium",
      "type": "Ubuntu"
    }
  ],
  "upstream": [
    "CVE-2023-48706"
  ]
}



Log in or create an account to share your comment.




Tags
Taxonomy of the tags.





Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.

Sightings

Author Source Type Date Other

Nomenclature

  • Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
  • Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
  • Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
  • Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.



Related by attack behaviour

Vulnerabilities whose description is nearest to this one in the vector space of the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-biencoder model. This is a similarity search over the bi-encoder space (plain cosine), not a classification, and it has no measured accuracy.