Advisory Details

December 13th, 2011

Microsoft Office Word Hidden Border Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

ZDI-11-347
ZDI-CAN-1085

CVE ID CVE-2011-1983
CVSS SCORE 9.0, AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:P/A:P
AFFECTED VENDORS Microsoft
AFFECTED PRODUCTS Office Word
VULNERABILITY DETAILS


This vulnerability allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable installations of Microsoft Office Word 2007/2010. User interaction is required to exploit this vulnerability in that the target must visit a malicious page or open a malicious file.

The specific flaw exists within how the application handles a border containing a specific property. When parsing this property, the application will incorrectly free it. If the application attempts to render the object, a use-after-free condition can be made to occur. This can lead to code execution under the context of the application.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS Microsoft has issued an update to correct this vulnerability. More details can be found at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/MS11-089
DISCLOSURE TIMELINE
  • 2011-04-01 - Vulnerability reported to vendor
  • 2011-12-13 - Coordinated public release of advisory
CREDIT Nikita Tarakanov (CISS Research Team) and Alexey Sintsov (Digital Security Research Group)
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