Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-51401 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-51401 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-51401?
- High severity, with a CVSS score of 7.7, published 4 August 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- Vim v9.2.0389 and earlier.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-51401?
- No fixed version is recorded yet. Check the vendor's advisory in the references below. If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.
- How is CVE-2026-51401 attacked?
- It is attacked with local access.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-51401?
- Check whether you run Vim at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
Technical details
CVE-2026-51401 is a NULL pointer dereference (CWE-476) in the vms_fixfilename() function within vim/src/os_vms.c. The vulnerable function calls vim_realloc() without validating the returned pointer; when memory allocation fails under low-memory conditions, a NULL pointer is dereferenced during string operations, immediately crashing the process. This vulnerability affects Vim v9.2.0389 and earlier on VMS systems. Local attackers can trigger this denial-of-service condition through standard file and path handling operations. No patch status is explicitly stated in the advisory.
Affected products
- Vim Vim v9.2.0389 and earlier
Timeline
- 2026-08-04: disclosed