What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2025-55157: Vim heap use-after-free vulnerability when processing recursive tuple data types

• Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2025-08-11 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-416

Description

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. In versions from 9.1.1231 to before 9.1.1400, When processing nested tuples in Vim script, an error during evaluation can trigger a use-after-free in Vim’s internal tuple reference management. Specifically, the tuple_unref() function may access already freed memory due to improper lifetime handling, leading to memory corruption. The exploit requires direct user interaction, as the script must be explicitly executed within Vim. This issue has been patched in version 9.1.1400.

Affected products

• vim/vim: from 9.1.1231 before 9.1.1400 — fixed in 9.1.1400

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: vim/vim 9.1.1400. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/vim/vim/commit/1307743697bbc46e1518abfea7f89caa95bcaf97
• https://github.com/vim/vim/releases/tag/v9.1.1400
• https://github.com/vim/vim/security/advisories/GHSA-3r4f-mm4w-wgg6

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