Editor crash via unbounded tilde substitution expansion
Published May 9, 2023 · Updated Jun 23, 2026
Integer overflow in Vim before 9.0.1532 allows attackers to crash the editor via crafted substitute commands that expand tildes. The regtilde function casts substitution lengths to int and repeatedly allocates and copies expanded text without enforcing MAXCOL. Execution requires user interaction with attacker-controlled commands; successful triggering can consume excessive memory and terminate the editing session.
Summary
What happened
Integer overflow in Vim before 9.0.1532 allows attackers to crash the editor via crafted substitute commands that expand tildes. The regtilde function casts substitution lengths to int and repeatedly allocates and copies expanded text without enforcing MAXCOL. Execution requires user interaction with attacker-controlled commands; successful triggering can consume excessive memory and terminate the editing session.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-2610
- Published
- May 9, 2023
- Updated
- Jun 23, 2026
- Vendor
- Vim
- Product
- Vim
- Classifications
- CWE-190
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 9, 2023CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Jun 23, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=unspecified <9.0.1532
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- Huntr proof of concept for CVE-2023-2610proof of concept · unverified
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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