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VimApplication

CVE-2026-28421

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-02-27
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 9.2.0077 or later.
See remediation →
81/100
Remediation priority · High
No privileges Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Versions prior to 9.2.0077 have a heap-buffer-overflow and a segmentation fault (SEGV) exist in Vim's swap file recovery logic. Both are caused by unvalidated fields read from crafted pointer blocks within a swap file. Version 9.2.0077 fixes the issue.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-20

The application accepts input without confirming it is well-formed or within expected bounds, so malformed data can push the program into states its author never anticipated. Attackers probe these gaps to trigger crashes, bypass logic, or feed tainted values into more dangerous operations downstream. Remediating it well means validating and normalising every input at the boundary against a strict allow-list — not merely filtering known-bad values.

General guidance for the improper input validation class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
VimApplication
Affected:< 9.2.0077

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

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

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 9.2.0077 or later
Fixed in 9.2.0077
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

9.2.0077

  1. Check your current Vim version by running `vim --version` or `:version` in Vim
  2. Download Vim version 9.2.0077 from the official Vim GitHub releases (https://github.com/vim/vim/releases) or use your system's package manager to upgrade
  3. For Linux/Unix systems using package managers: update your package index and install vim (e.g., `sudo apt update && sudo apt install vim` or `sudo yum update vim`), or compile from source using the 9.2.0077 tag
  4. For macOS: use Homebrew (`brew upgrade vim`) or MacPorts
  5. For Windows: download the official gvim74.exe or vimxxw64.exe installer from GitHub and run the installation
  6. Verify the upgrade was successful by running `vim --version` and confirming the version shows 9.2.0077 or later
  7. After upgrading, delete any existing swap files (`.swp` files) that may have been created by vulnerable Vim versions as a precaution

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,950. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-28421 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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