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.

An update of the vim package has been released.

The remote Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS / 18.04 LTS / 20.04 LTS / 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS / 25.10 / 26.04 LTS host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the USN-8500-1 advisory.

    It was discovered that Vim incorrectly handled path traversal in the zip.vim plugin. An attacker could     possibly use this issue to overwrite arbitrary files. This issue only affected Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu     16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. (CVE-2026-35177)

    It was discovered that Vim incorrectly handled depth tracking when processing spell files. An attacker     could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2026-55693, CVE-2026-55892)

    It was discovered that Vim incorrectly handled filename escaping in the netrw plugin. An attacker could     possibly use this issue to execute arbitrary code. This issue only affected Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04     LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 25.10, and Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.
    (CVE-2026-55895)

    It was discovered that Vim incorrectly handled length calculations when opening encrypted files. An     attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service. This issue only affected Ubuntu 22.04     LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 25.10, and Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. (CVE-2026-57452)

    Dhruv Vishesh Gupta discovered that Vim incorrectly handled quoting of archive entry names. An attacker     could possibly use this issue to execute arbitrary code. This issue only affected Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.
    (CVE-2026-57453)

    It was discovered that Vim incorrectly handled bounds checking when translating words through a byte map.
    An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2026-57455)

    Chenyuan Mi discovered that Vim incorrectly handled docstring escaping during Python omni-completion. An     attacker could possibly use this issue to execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2026-57456)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The version of Vim installed on the remote host is prior to 9.2.0653. It is, therefore, affected by a vulnerability.

  - 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. (CVE-2026-55693)

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

  - 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. (CVE-2026-55693)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
325971	Photon OS 4.0: Vim PHSA-2026-4.0-1049	Nessus	PhotonOS Local Security Checks	high
324991	Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS / 18.04 LTS / 20.04 LTS / 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS / 25.10 / 26.04 LTS : Vim vulnerabilities (USN-8500-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	high
324731	Vim < 9.2.0653 Stack Out-of-Bounds Write (GHSA-wgh4-64f7-q3jq)	Nessus	Misc.	high
323929	Photon OS 5.0: Vim PHSA-2026-5.0-0908	Nessus	PhotonOS Local Security Checks	high
323787	Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-55693	Nessus	Misc.	high

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