CVE-2025-26603

Description

Vim is a greatly improved version of the good old UNIX editor Vi. Vim allows to redirect screen messages using the `:redir` ex command to register, variables and files. It also allows to show the contents of registers using the `:registers` or `:display` ex command. When redirecting the output of `:display` to a register, Vim will free the register content before storing the new content in the register. Now when redirecting the `:display` command to a register that is being displayed, Vim will free the content while shortly afterwards trying to access it, which leads to a use-after-free. Vim pre 9.1.1115 checks in the ex_display() function, that it does not try to redirect to a register while displaying this register at the same time. However this check is not complete, and so Vim does not check the `+` and `*` registers (which typically donate the X11/clipboard registers, and when a clipboard connection is not possible will fall back to use register 0 instead. In Patch 9.1.1115 Vim will therefore skip outputting to register zero when trying to redirect to the clipboard registers `*` or `+`. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

How to fix CVE-2025-26603

To remediate CVE-2025-26603, upgrade the affected package to a fixed version below.

• —upgrade to 9.1.1164-r0 or later
• —no fix listed

Is CVE-2025-26603 being exploited?

Low — EPSS is 0.0%, meaning exploitation activity has not been observed at scale.

Affected packages (2)

• from 0, < 9.1.1164-r0
• from 0

CVSS scores

References (2)

• ADVISORYsecurity.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2025-26603
• ADVISORYsecurity-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-26603