Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:LCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2024-45306 is a medium-severity Heap-based Buffer Overflow (CWE-122) vulnerability in Vim Vim. Its CVSS base score is 4.5 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 22th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2024-41429
Vulnerability Data
Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Patch v9.1.0038 optimized how the cursor position is calculated and removed a loop, that verified that the cursor position always points inside a line and does not become invalid by pointing…
more
beyond the end of a line. Back then we assumed this loop is unnecessary. However, this change made it possible that the cursor position stays invalid and points beyond the end of a line, which would eventually cause a heap-buffer-overflow when trying to access the line pointer at the specified cursor position. It's not quite clear yet, what can lead to this situation that the cursor points to an invalid position. That's why patch v9.1.0707 does not include a test case. The only observed impact has been a program crash. This issue has been addressed in with the patch v9.1.0707. All users are advised to upgrade.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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V1.4.1
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation (including fuzzing and memory-error detectors) can discover heap overflows after they have been coded.
Input validation enforces bounds checking on data written to heap buffers, directly stopping the overflow condition from being introduced.
Requiring documented secure-development standards and tools can mandate bounds-checked coding practices that avoid the weakness.
Security engineering principles require use of memory-safe constructs and bounds-checked allocation routines that avoid introducing heap overflows.
Memory-protection mechanisms limit the ability of a heap overflow to execute attacker-controlled code or corrupt adjacent structures.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Secure-development practices directly require bounds checking and safe memory handling that prevent heap overflows.
Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover heap-overflow flaws but does not prevent their introduction in code.
Timely patching removes known heap-overflow instances after they exist.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Security testing in development and acceptance can detect heap overflows before release.
Secure development lifecycle mandates practices that reduce the likelihood of introducing heap overflows.
Application security requirements can specify bounds-checking and safe memory APIs that mitigate heap overflows.
Secure architecture and engineering principles include memory-safety and input-validation controls that address heap overflows.
Secure coding standards directly prescribe techniques (safe functions, bounds checks) that prevent heap-based buffer overflows.
Change management can enforce review gates that catch unsafe memory operations before deployment.