CVE-2021-4193 | Out-of-bounds Read in vim/vim

Exp

vim is vulnerable to Out-of-bounds Read

Published: 2021-12-31 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2021-4193 is rated High Exploit Risk (64.5/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.76%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +1.20% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2021-4193

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2021-4193

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.56% 1.76% +1.20%
2 2026-06-10 0.46% 0.56% +0.10%
3 2026-06-07 — 0.46% —

Full EPSS history (22 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2021-4193

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 1.8 3.6 [email protected]
5.5 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 1.8 3.6 [email protected]
4.3 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 8.6 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2021-4193

OS Trackers for CVE-2021-4193

vendor priority summary link
alpine medium CVE-2021-4193: 1 source package rows (vim); 54 state rows across 8 repos (3.12-main, 3.17-main, 3.18-main, 3.19-main, 3.20-main, 3.21-main, 3.22-main, edge-main); fixed 8, open 46. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2021-4193
debian unimportant CVE-2021-4193 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (vim), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 4, open 1. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2021-4193
gentoo low CVE-2021-4193: 1 GLSA(s) (202208-32), 3 atom(s) (app-editors/gvim, app-editors/vim, app-editors/vim-core); latest impact low. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2021-4193
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-4193
suse low CVE-2021-4193 severity low: SUSE including 289 source package names (0.49.0.18.8:vim-8.0.1568-5.17.1, 0.49.0.18.8:vim-data-common-8.0.1568-5.17.1, …), 738 product×package rows across 210 product lines (Container ses/7.1/ceph/haproxy, Container suse/sle-micro-rancher/5.2, … (210 product lines)): Fixed 536, Known Affected 178, Known Not Affected 24. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-4193/
ubuntu low CVE-2021-4193 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (vim), 9 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, trusty, upstream, xenial): released 5, ignored 2, not-affected 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2021-4193

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2021-4193

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
vim vim < 8.2.3950 cpe:2.3:a:vim:vim:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 34 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:34:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 9.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 10.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple mac_os_x 10.15.7 cpe:2.3:o:apple:mac_os_x:10.15.7:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple mac_os_x 10.15.7 cpe:2.3:o:apple:mac_os_x:10.15.7:security_update_2020-001:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple mac_os_x 10.15.7 cpe:2.3:o:apple:mac_os_x:10.15.7:security_update_2021-001:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple mac_os_x 10.15.7 cpe:2.3:o:apple:mac_os_x:10.15.7:security_update_2021-002:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple mac_os_x 10.15.7 cpe:2.3:o:apple:mac_os_x:10.15.7:security_update_2021-003:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple mac_os_x 10.15.7 cpe:2.3:o:apple:mac_os_x:10.15.7:security_update_2021-004:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple mac_os_x 10.15.7 cpe:2.3:o:apple:mac_os_x:10.15.7:security_update_2021-005:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple mac_os_x 10.15.7 cpe:2.3:o:apple:mac_os_x:10.15.7:security_update_2021-006:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple mac_os_x 10.15.7 cpe:2.3:o:apple:mac_os_x:10.15.7:security_update_2021-007:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple mac_os_x 10.15.7 cpe:2.3:o:apple:mac_os_x:10.15.7:security_update_2021-008:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple mac_os_x 10.15.7 cpe:2.3:o:apple:mac_os_x:10.15.7:security_update_2022-001:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple mac_os_x 10.15.7 cpe:2.3:o:apple:mac_os_x:10.15.7:security_update_2022-002:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple mac_os_x 10.15.7 cpe:2.3:o:apple:mac_os_x:10.15.7:security_update_2022-003:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple macos < 12.3 cpe:2.3:o:apple:macos:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple macos >= 11.0, < 11.6.6 cpe:2.3:o:apple:macos:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
apple macos 10.15.7 cpe:2.3:o:apple:macos:10.15.7:security_update_2022-004:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2021-4193

URL Tags
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2022/Jul/14 Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2022/Mar/29 Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2022/May/35 Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2022/01/15/1 Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/vim/vim/commit/94f3192b03ed27474db80b4d3a409e107140738b Patch Third Party Advisory
https://huntr.dev/bounties/92c1940d-8154-473f-84ce-0de43b0c2eb0 Exploit Patch Third Party Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2022/03/msg00018.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2022/11/msg00009.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/3FH2J57GDA2WMBS6J56F6QQRA6BXQQFZ/
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202208-32 Third Party Advisory
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT213183 Release Notes Third Party Advisory
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT213256 Third Party Advisory
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT213343 Third Party Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence