CVE-2025-47168: Use-After-Free Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Word Allowing Unauthorized Code Execution

Overview

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system has recently identified a critical vulnerability, CVE-2025-47168, that affects Microsoft Office Word. This vulnerability, if exploited, can allow an unauthorized attacker to execute code locally, posing a severe risk to the security and integrity of systems running this software. The impact of such a breach could lead to potential system compromise or data leakage, making this a matter of high priority for organizations and individuals utilizing Microsoft Office Word in their daily operations.

Vulnerability Summary

CVE ID: CVE-2025-47168
Severity: High, with a CVSS score of 7.8
Attack Vector: Local
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Impact: Unauthorized code execution leading to potential system compromise or data leakage

Affected Products

Product | Affected Versions

Microsoft Office Word | All versions prior to the vendor patch

How the Exploit Works

This vulnerability, known as a Use-After-Free exploit, takes advantage of a memory handling error in Microsoft Office Word. In such an exploit, the attacker manipulates the application to use a memory object after it has been freed or deleted. This can lead to various adverse outcomes, such as code corruption, crashes, or in this case, unauthorized code execution.

Conceptual Example Code

Here is a conceptual example of how an attacker might exploit this vulnerability. This is a pseudocode representation and does not represent a real-world attack scenario:

// Allocate object
object vulnerableObject = new VulnerableObject();
// Use the object
vulnerableObject.DoSomething();
// Free the object
delete vulnerableObject;
// ... Later ...
// The object is used again after it has been freed
// This is where the use-after-free occurs
vulnerableObject.DoSomethingElse(); // BOOM! Unauthorized code execution

In the above pseudocode, the `vulnerableObject` is used after it has been deleted, which leads to the use-after-free vulnerability.

Mitigation Guidance

The primary mitigation strategy for this vulnerability is to apply the vendor-provided patch. Microsoft has issued a patch for this vulnerability, and all users are strongly advised to update their software as soon as possible.
As a temporary measure, a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) may be used to detect and block attempts to exploit this vulnerability. However, these are not long-term solutions and cannot fully protect against the vulnerability. The only foolproof mitigation is to apply the vendor patch.
It is also recommended to follow good security practices such as running software with the least necessary privileges, enabling automatic updates, and regularly backing up data. These practices can mitigate the impact of this and other vulnerabilities.