CVE-2026-28417

Vim is an open source, command line text editor. Prior to version 9.2.0073, an OS command injection vulnerability exists in the netrw standard plugin bundled with Vim. By inducing a user to open a crafted URL (e.g., using the scp:// protocol handler), an attacker can execute arbitrary shell commands with the privileges of the Vim process. Version 9.2.0073 fixes the issue.

Weakness

The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes invalid characters or byte sequences in the middle of tag names, URI schemes, and other identifiers.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Use and specify an output encoding that can be handled by the downstream component that is reading the output. Common encodings include ISO-8859-1, UTF-7, and UTF-8. When an encoding is not specified, a downstream component may choose a different encoding, either by assuming a default encoding or automatically inferring which encoding is being used, which can be erroneous. When the encodings are inconsistent, the downstream component might treat some character or byte sequences as special, even if they are not special in the original encoding. Attackers might then be able to exploit this discrepancy and conduct injection attacks; they even might be able to bypass protection mechanisms that assume the original encoding is also being used by the downstream component.
• The problem of inconsistent output encodings often arises in web pages. If an encoding is not specified in an HTTP header, web browsers often guess about which encoding is being used. This can open up the browser to subtle XSS attacks.

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/247.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/73.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/85.html

References

• https://github.com/vim/vim/commit/79348dbbc09332130f4c860
• https://github.com/vim/vim/releases/tag/v9.2.0073
• https://github.com/vim/vim/security/advisories/GHSA-m3xh-9434-g336
• http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/02/27/6