Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2026-55892 is a medium-severity Out-of-bounds Write (CWE-787) vulnerability in Vim Vim. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked at the 2th 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 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SI-7 (Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-39451
Vulnerability Data
Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to 9.2.0662, the dump_prefixes() function in src/spell.c walks a spell-file prefix trie iteratively with a depth counter while dumping the prefixes that apply to a word. The counter is bounded…
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only by the trie structure itself; it is never checked against the size of the fixed MAXWLEN-element stack arrays it indexes (prefix[], arridx[], curi[]). A crafted .spl file, loaded when the user dumps the word list, can drive the descent arbitrarily deep, so the function writes past the end of those arrays. This is a stack out-of-bounds write that corrupts the call frame and crashes the editor. This vulnerability is fixed in 9.2.0662.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Stack OOB write in Vim triggered by crafted .spl file leads directly to application crash via exploitation.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Enforces validation of untrusted .spl file contents (trie depth, prefix counts) before they are used to index fixed-size stack arrays in dump_prefixes().
Requires cryptographic or hash-based integrity verification of spell files so that a crafted .spl cannot be loaded without detection.
Malicious-code or content-filtering mechanisms can be configured to inspect or sandbox externally supplied .spl files before Vim parses them.
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 (static analysis, bounds checking, code review) are the primary means of preventing out-of-bounds writes.
Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover out-of-bounds write flaws so they can be remediated.
Patching or replacing vulnerable software directly eliminates known instances of this coding weakness.
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 and prevent out-of-bounds write defects.
Secure development life cycle mandates practices that prevent out-of-bounds writes.
Application security requirements can specify bounds-checking and safe memory handling.
Secure architecture and engineering principles reduce the likelihood of buffer overflows.
Secure coding directly addresses out-of-bounds writes through language choice and coding standards.
Change management can enforce review gates that catch unsafe memory operations before deployment.