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Fencer Vulns
high 7.3

CVE-2021-3984 json

Heap-based Buffer Overflow in vim/vim

published 2021-12-01 4 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-27184

cvss
7.3
version 3.0, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.6%
EPSS 1.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 75%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

vim is vulnerable to Heap-based Buffer Overflow

Patch / fix

  • vim vim/vim 8.2.3625
  • vim Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2:8.2.3995-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-3984

  • vim Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 2:8.0.1453-1ubuntu1.8
  • vim Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 2:8.1.2269-1ubuntu5.6
  • vim Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 2:7.4.052-1ubuntu3.1+esm17
  • vim Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 2:7.4.1689-3ubuntu1.5+esm4

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-3984

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • vim RHEL 8 2:8.0.1763-16.el8_5.4
  • vim-X11 RHEL 8 2:8.0.1763-16.el8_5.4
  • vim-common RHEL 8 2:8.0.1763-16.el8_5.4
  • vim-minimal RHEL 8 2:8.0.1763-16.el8_5.4
  • vim-enhanced RHEL 8 2:8.0.1763-16.el8_5.4
  • vim-filesystem RHEL 8 2:8.0.1763-16.el8_5.4

red hat advisories RHSA-2022:0366

  • vim SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES 12 SP5 +5 more 9.0.0814-17.9.1
  • vim SLES for SAP 15 SP2, SLES for SAP 15 SP1, SLES for SAP 15 +24 more 8.2.5038-150000.5.21.1
  • vim SLES 15 SP2-BCL, SLES 15 SP1-BCL, SLE Real Time 15 SP2 +22 more 8.0.1568-5.17.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2022:4619-1SUSE-SU-2022:2102-1SUSE-SU-2022:0736-2SUSE-SU-2022:0736-1

  • vim openSUSE Leap 15.3 8.0.1568-5.17.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2022:0736-1

  • vim-X11 AlmaLinux 8 2:8.0.1763-16.el8_5.13
  • vim-common AlmaLinux 8 2:8.0.1763-16.el8_5.13
  • vim-minimal AlmaLinux 8 2:8.0.1763-16.el8_5.13
  • vim-enhanced AlmaLinux 8 2:8.0.1763-16.el8_5.13
  • vim-filesystem AlmaLinux 8 2:8.0.1763-16.el8_5.13

almalinux advisories ALSA-2022:0366

  • vim Rocky Linux 8 2:8.0.1763-16.el8_5.4

rocky linux advisories RLSA-2022:0366

  • vim Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +10 more 8.2.3650-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2021-3984

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • vim CBL-Mariner 2.0 8.2.4081-1

azure linux advisories AZL-6948

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

  • vim Arch Linux 8.2.3741-1
  • gvim Arch Linux 8.2.3741-1

arch linux advisories AVG-2572

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2021-3984 updated cvss 7.3

vim: illegal memory access in find_start_brace() in cindent.c when C-indenting

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 vim, vim-X11, vim-common, vim-minimal, vim-enhanced, vim-filesystem Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 vim, vim-X11, vim-common, vim-minimal, vim-enhanced, vim-filesystem
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Do not run untrusted vim scripts with -s {scriptin} as it is never safe to do so.”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 8) vim-X11 8.0.1763-16.el8_5.4, vim-common 8.0.1763-16.el8_5.4, vim-enhanced 8.0.1763-16.el8_5.4, vim-filesystem 8.0.1763-16.el8_5.4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 8) vim 8.0.1763-16.el8_5.4, vim-minimal 8.0.1763-16.el8_5.4
    fixed: vendor fix “Do not run untrusted vim scripts with -s {scriptin} as it is never safe to do so.” RHSA-2022:0366
  • Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2 rhacm2/openshift-hive-rhel8 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 vim, vim-X11, vim-common, vim-minimal, vim-enhanced, vim-filesystem
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

1.57% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 75% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • huntr.dev https://huntr.dev/bounties/b114b5a2-18e2-49f0-b350-15994d71426a referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.0 7.3 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Affected products

  • vim vim/vim

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.