Debian 4.0 DSA 1364-2 Moderate: Vim Code Execution Threat

debian

September 19, 2007

Editors often provide a way to embed editor configuration commands (aka modelines) which are executed once a file is opened

Topics Covered

security advisory update code execution debian vim editor issue

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.

This updated advisory repairs issues with missing files in the packages
for the oldstable distribution (sarge) for the alpha, mips, and mipsel
architectures.

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 distrib...