Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
medium 4.0

CVE-2023-46246 json

Integer Overflow in :history command in Vim

published 2023-10-27 3 y ago modified 2026-06-23 4 mo ago also EUVD-2023-50477

cvss
4.0
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 32%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Vim is an improved version of the good old UNIX editor Vi. Heap-use-after-free in memory allocated in the function `ga_grow_inner` in in the file `src/alloc.c` at line 748, which is freed in the file `src/ex_docmd.c` in the function `do_cmdline` at line 1010 and then used again in `src/cmdhist.c` at line 759. When using the `:history` command, it's possible that the provided argument overflows the accepted value. Causing an Integer Overflow and potentially later an use-after-free. This vulnerability has been patched in version 9.0.2068.

Patch / fix

  • vim vim 9.0.2068
  • vim Debian 14, Debian 13 2:9.0.2087-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-46246

  • vim Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 2:8.1.2269-1ubuntu5.21
  • vim Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.15
  • vim Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 2:7.4.052-1ubuntu3.1+esm15
  • vim Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 2:7.4.1689-3ubuntu1.5+esm22
  • vim Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS 2:8.0.1453-1ubuntu1.13+esm7

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-46246

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 SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES for SAP 15 SP2, SLES for SAP 15 SP1 +17 more 9.0.2103-150000.5.57.1
  • vim SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5 9.0.2103-17.26.1
  • vim SLE Module for Desktop Applications 15 SP5, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, SLE Micro 5.5 +1 more 9.0.2103-150500.20.6.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2023:4587-1SUSE-SU-2023:4560-1SUSE-SU-2023:4557-1

  • vim CBL-Mariner 2.0 9.0.2112-1

azure linux advisories AZL-31702

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

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-2023-46246 updated cvss 4.0

vim: Integer Overflow in :history command

  • 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: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 vim, vim-X11, vim-common, vim-minimal, vim-enhanced, vim-filesystem Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 vim, vim-X11, vim-common, vim-minimal, vim-enhanced, vim-filesystem
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) rhoai/odh-dashboard-rhel9
    under investigation

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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.38% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 32% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/vim/vim/security/advisories/GHSA-q22m-h7m2-9mgm referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 4.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • 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.