CVE-2026-55693
CVE-2026-55693 — Vim: Out-of-bounds Write in Spell File Word Count
Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to 9.2.0653, the tree_count_words() function in src/spellfile.c fills in the word-count fields of a spell-file word trie by walking it iteratively with a depth counter. The counter is bounded only by the trie structure itself; it is never checked against the size of the fixed MAXWLEN-element stack arrays it indexes (arridx[], curi[], wordcount[]). A crafted .spl/.sug file pair, loaded when the user invokes spell suggestion, 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 9.2.0653.
Published Updated Sources: cvelistV5, GitHub_M
Triage
Is it exploited, how likely is exploitation, what does it touch, and how severe do the scoring sources call it.
Exploitation
Unreported
no source claims exploitation
EPSS
0%
chance of exploitation in 30 days
CVSS base
5.7
MEDIUM
CISA SSVC assessment
Three decision points CISA publishes for the CVEs it assesses · SSVC 2.0.3. A stakeholder decision, not a severity score.
Exploitation
None
none · proof-of-concept · active
Automatable
No
can an attacker script all four kill-chain steps
Technical impact
Total
partial · total control of the vulnerable component
Affected scope
The catalog records vendors and products as separate lists, not pairs, so which product belongs to which vendor is not something this page can say.
Vendors (1)
Products (1)
Every base score collected
Sources score independently and disagree; each row says who scored it and under which version.
| Score | Version | Severity | Expl. | Impact | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5.7 | CVSS 4.0 | MEDIUM | — | — | cvelistV5 |
Weakness & attack patterns
- CWE-787
Detection
Read off the CVSS vector and the weakness class. Starting points, not rules we have tested.
- Search application, proxy, and WAF logs for requests touching /spellfile.c, /.sug.
References
3 on the record
- github.com/vim/vim/security/advisories/GHSA-wgh4-64f7-q3jq
x_refsource_CONFIRM
- github.com/vim/vim/commit/a80874d9b84a01040e3d1aef2d4a59e1934dafb7
x_refsource_MISC
- github.com/vim/vim/releases/tag/v9.2.0653
x_refsource_MISC
Elsewhere on this site
Not in any source we poll
Listed rather than left blank: an empty field and an unmeasured one look identical on screen, and only one is a reason to look elsewhere.
- No confirmed IOCs, IP addresses, domains, file hashes, or malware artifacts supplied.
- No organization-specific asset inventory, compensating-control status, or patch deployment evidence supplied.
- No exploit packet captures, log samples, or incident case IDs supplied.