Overview
We’re taking a deep dive into CVE-2025-53735, a significant vulnerability that poses a real threat to users of Microsoft Office Excel. This vulnerability is particularly concerning due to its potential to allow an unauthorized attacker to execute code locally on the affected system. Because Excel is widely used in organizations and individual systems across the world, the reach of this vulnerability is extensive and its impacts severe.
This vulnerability has been classified as ‘Use After Free,’ which is a type of issue where a program continues to use memory after it has been freed or de-allocated. Largely, this can lead to unpredictable behavior, including program crashes, incorrect outputs, and in severe cases – like this vulnerability – it can allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-53735
Severity: High (7.8 CVSS Score)
Attack Vector: Local
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Impact: Potential system compromise or data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Microsoft Office Excel | All versions prior to latest patch
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability is a result of improper memory management in Microsoft Office Excel. When an Excel document is closed, some objects associated with the document are not properly de-allocated. If an attacker can trick a user into opening a specifically crafted Excel document, they can leverage this vulnerability to use these ‘freed’ objects to execute arbitrary code.
Conceptual Example Code
The following is a conceptual example of how an attacker might exploit this vulnerability using a malicious Excel document:
# Create an Excel document
doc = create_excel_document()
# Add malicious payload that uses the 'use after free' vulnerability
payload = craft_payload('use after free', 'arbitrary code')
doc.add_payload(payload)
# Save the document
doc.save('malicious_document.xlsx')Please note that this is a simplified example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. Actual exploitation would involve complex manipulation of the Excel document’s internals and the system’s memory.
In conclusion, this vulnerability highlights the importance of proper memory management in software development. Users are advised to update their Microsoft Office Excel as soon as patches become available. In the meantime, implementing a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can provide temporary mitigation.
