7.8High
CVE-2026-43961
A flaw was found in Vim's netrw plugin. A crafted filename containing quote characters and expression fragments can break out of the quoted context during mark/unmark operations, allowing arbitrary Vimscript execution. This can be leveraged to run shell commands with the privileges of the user running Vim.
What this means for your business
- An attacker can use it only with access to the machine itself, without a login, but only after tricking someone into an action such as opening a file or a link.
- FIRST's prediction model gives it a 0.2% chance of attack attempts being seen in the next 30 days, ranking above 5% of all known flaws.
What to do
- 1Ask your IT team or provider whether any of your systems use the affected product.
- 2If you do, follow the vendor's guidance. No patch reference has been published yet.
Not sure if your company is exposed?
Fastnexa’s certified penetration testers can check whether attackers could use this flaw, or others like it, against your websites, apps and network. The full test is free for our first 10 founding clients until 31 December 2026.
Scoring
- CVSS
- 7.8 (v3.1)
- Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H- Weakness
- CWE-94
- Assigned by
- secalert@redhat.com
Dates
- Published
- 2026-08-19
- Last modified
- 2026-09-21
- Sources
- NVD