Description

Stack-based buffer overflow in Microsoft Office allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code locally.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.8",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-11T17:18:49.390Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-11T17:18:49.390Z",
  "executiveSummary": "A stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability exists in Microsoft Office, posing severe security risks to affected systems.\nThe flaw allows an unauthorized, local attacker to execute arbitrary code within the context of the current user.\nSuccessful exploitation compromises the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of the host system, potentially leading to complete system compromise depending on the privileges of the affected user running the application.\nThe vulnerability resides in memory management routines handling specific input structures within Microsoft Office.\nExploitation typically requires local access and user interaction, such as convincing a target to open a specially crafted malicious file using a vulnerable version of the software.\nGiven the ubiquitous deployment of Microsoft Office across enterprise and consumer environments, unpatched systems face significant exposure to local privilege escalation or code execution vectors.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability is a classic stack-based buffer overflow stemming from insufficient bounds checking during the processing of data structures within Microsoft Office.\nWhen a vulnerable component parses maliciously crafted input, data is written to a fixed-size stack buffer without adequately validating the size of the incoming payload against the destination buffer allocation.\nThis memory corruption flaw allows an attacker to overwrite adjacent stack memory, including saved frame pointers and return addresses, leading to direct control over the instruction pointer (EIP/RIP) upon function return.\nExecution flow is redirected to attacker-controlled shellcode orROP (Return-Oriented Programming) chains embedded within the malicious payload.\nThe attack vector requires local access, wherein the attacker must deliver a specially crafted file to the target system and induce the victim to open it using the vulnerable Microsoft Office application.\nAuthentication is not required for the initial payload delivery if the file is executed locally, and the vulnerability can be triggered without elevated privileges.\nPost-exploitation impact includes the execution of arbitrary commands with the permissions of the logged-in user, facilitating unauthorized data access, installation of persistent malware, or lateral movement within a compromised network environment if the user possesses administrative privileges.\nRoot cause analysis points to unsafe memory copy operations lacking strict length verification in the affected parsing functions."
}