CVE-2024-43790

Description

A vulnerability was found in the VIM package. When performing a search and displaying the search count message is disabled, the search pattern is shown at the bottom of the screen, and this text is stored in an internal buffer. The search pattern is reversed when using the right-left search mode, and a new internal buffer will be created. If the original search pattern contains NULL characters, the newly allocated buffer will be smaller than the required size, leading to a head-based out-of-bounds read. This flaw allows an attacker to trick the user into running the malicious search pattern and execute all the steps required to cause the out-of-bounds read.

Statement

Red Hat Product Security has rated this issue as having a Low security impact because the "victim" has to run an untrusted file IN SCRIPT MODE. Someone who is running untrusted files in script mode is equivalent to someone just taking a random Python script and running it.

For additional information, refer to the Issue Severity Classification: https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/

Mitigation

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score4.25.54.5
Attack VectorLocalLocalLocal
Attack ComplexityHighLowHigh
Privileges RequiredLowLowNone
User InteractionRequiredNoneRequired
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedUnchanged
ConfidentialityLowNoneLow
Integrity ImpactLowNoneLow
Availability ImpactLowHighLow

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory)

Buffer overflows generally lead to crashes. Other attacks leading to lack of availability are possible, including putting the program into an infinite loop.

Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability,Access Control

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; Bypass Protection Mechanism; Modify Memory

Buffer overflows often can be used to execute arbitrary code, which is usually outside the scope of a program's implicit security policy. Besides important user data, heap-based overflows can be used to overwrite function pointers that may be living in memory, pointing it to the attacker's code. Even in applications that do not explicitly use function pointers, the run-time will usually leave many in memory. For example, object methods in C++ are generally implemented using function pointers. Even in C programs, there is often a global offset table used by the underlying runtime.

Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability,Access Control,Other

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; Bypass Protection Mechanism; Other

When the consequence is arbitrary code execution, this can often be used to subvert any other security service.

Frequently Asked Questions

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