CVE-2008-4101

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.3 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 9.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2008-09-18 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-20

Description

Vim 3.0 through 7.x before 7.2.010 does not properly escape characters, which allows user-assisted attackers to (1) execute arbitrary shell commands by entering a K keystroke on a line that contains a ";" (semicolon) followed by a command, or execute arbitrary Ex commands by entering an argument after a (2) "Ctrl-]" (control close-square-bracket) or (3) "g]" (g close-square-bracket) keystroke sequence, a different issue than CVE-2008-2712.

Affected products

vim/vim: through 7.2; 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 (+12)

References

http://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/patches/7.2/7.2.010
http://groups.google.com/group/vim_dev/attach/9290f26f9bc11b33/K-arbitrary-command-execution.patch.v3?part=2
http://groups.google.com/group/vim_dev/attach/dd32ad3a84f36bb2/K-arbitrary-command-execution.patch?part=2
http://groups.google.com/group/vim_dev/browse_thread/thread/1434d0812b5c817e/6ad2d5b50a96668e
http://groups.google.com/group/vim_dev/msg/9290f26f9bc11b33
http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2008/Oct/msg00001.html
http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2010//Mar/msg00001.html
http://secunia.com/advisories/31592
http://secunia.com/advisories/32222
http://secunia.com/advisories/32858
http://secunia.com/advisories/32864
http://secunia.com/advisories/33410

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