Debian: DSA 1364-1 Moderate: Multiple Vim Remote Execution Threats

debian

September 1, 2007

Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in the vim editor

Topics Covered

security advisory moderate software update Debian arbitrary code execution remote execution vim

Summary

Ulf Harnhammar discovered that a format string flaw in helptags_one() from
src/ex_cmds.c (triggered through the "helptags" command) can lead to the
execution of arbitrary code.

CVE-2007-2438

Editors often provide a way to embed editor configuration commands (aka
modelines) which are executed once a file is opened. Harmful commands
are filtered by a sandbox mechanism. It was discovered that function
calls to writefile(), feedkeys() and system() were not filtered, allowing
shell command execution with a carefully crafted file opened in vim.

For the oldstable distribution (sarge) these problems have been fixed in
version 6.3-071+1sarge2. Sarge is not affected by CVE-2007-2438.

For the stable distribution (etch) these problems have been fixed
in version 7.0-122+1etch3.

For the unstable distribution (sid) these problems have been fixed in
version 7.1-056+1.

We recommend that you upgrade your vim packages.

Upgrade Instructions
- -------------------...