Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-9389

Memory Safety in Vim 9.1.0000

Public PoCMemory Safety
Published
24 August 2025
Modified
17 June 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v4 1.9
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0021 12th percentile
Risk Priority 15 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-9389 is a low-severity Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer (CWE-119) vulnerability in Vim Vim. Its CVSS base score is 1.9 (Low).

Operationally, ranked at the 12th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SI-16 (Memory Protection) and AC-6 (Least Privilege) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

A vulnerability was identified in vim 9.1.0000. Affected is the function __memmove_avx_unaligned_erms of the file memmove-vec-unaligned-erms.S. The manipulation leads to memory corruption. The attack needs to be performed locally. The exploit is publicly available and might be used. Some users…

more

are not able to reproduce this. One of the users mentions that this appears not to be working, "when coloring is turned on".

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

Insufficient information to map techniques.
Confidence: LOW · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-0054Same product: Vim Vim
CVE-2025-9390Same product: Vim Vim
CVE-2025-1215Same product: Vim Vim
CVE-2023-4735Same product: Vim Vim
CVE-2023-4751Same product: Vim Vim
CVE-2023-4738Same product: Vim Vim
CVE-2023-5344Same product: Vim Vim
CVE-2026-10114Shared CWE-119, CWE-787
CVE-2023-3138Shared CWE-119, CWE-787
CVE-2023-37282Shared CWE-119, CWE-787

Affected Assets

vim
vim
9.1.0000

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)
  • SI-7 Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity
Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V17.3.2

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Directly enforces hardware/OS memory protections (e.g., W^X, ASLR, stack canaries) that block exploitation of the out-of-bounds write in __memmove_avx_unaligned_erms.

detect

Requires integrity verification of executing code and memory regions, enabling detection of the memory corruption introduced by the publicly-available exploit.

prevent

Limits the privileges of the Vim process and local user, reducing the impact of successful memory corruption even if the flaw is triggered.

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.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices (bounds checking, safe APIs, reviews) directly prevent this class of flaw.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability scanning and code analysis directly surface buffer-boundary flaws.

ID.RA-08 partial match
prevents

Receiving and triaging vulnerability disclosures commonly includes buffer-related reports.

PR.AT-02 partial match
prevents

Developer training on secure coding reduces introduction of memory-buffer errors.

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

Patching replaces vulnerable code containing buffer-boundary defects.

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.

detects

Security testing in development catches out-of-bounds accesses before release, covering most instances of the weakness.

prevents

Secure development lifecycle mandates memory-safety practices that directly prevent buffer-boundary violations.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify memory-safety rules, but do not prescribe implementation details.

prevents

Secure architecture and engineering principles include memory-safe design patterns that mitigate buffer overflows.

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe buffer operations, directly eliminating CWE-119.

prevents

Change management can enforce review gates that catch unsafe memory operations before deployment.

References