Overview
The recently discovered vulnerability, CVE-2025-47994, presents a significant risk to data security and system integrity for users of Microsoft Office. This vulnerability allows an unauthorized attacker to elevate their privileges locally, by exploiting the deserialization of untrusted data within the Office suite. This can potentially lead to system compromise and data leakage, posing a serious threat to organizational cybersecurity. As Microsoft Office is widely used both in businesses and in personal computing, this vulnerability has far-reaching implications and requires immediate attention.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-47994
Severity: High (CVSS score 7.8)
Attack Vector: Local
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Impact: Unauthorized escalation of privileges leading to potential system compromise or data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Microsoft Office | All versions prior to patch
How the Exploit Works
The CVE-2025-47994 vulnerability exploits the process of data deserialization within Microsoft Office. Deserialization is typically a safe process, converting serialized data back into its original state. However, when an attacker can manipulate the serialized data before it is deserialized, they can inject malicious code into the system. This vulnerability allows an unauthorized user to inject such malicious code, thereby elevating their privileges on the local system. This can potentially lead to complete system compromise or data leakage.
Conceptual Example Code
The following pseudocode represents a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited:
# Attacker creates malicious serialized data
malicious_data = create_malicious_data()
# Malicious data is sent to Microsoft Office, which deserializes it without proper validation
deserialized_data = microsoft_office.deserialize(malicious_data)
# Malicious code within the deserialized data is executed, elevating the attacker's privileges
execute_code(deserialized_data)Please note that this is a simplified conceptual example and actual exploitation would involve complex manipulation of serialized data and knowledge of the targeted system’s internals.
Recommendations
Microsoft has released a patch to address this vulnerability. It is highly recommended to promptly apply this patch to all affected systems. For organizations unable to immediately apply the patch, a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can provide temporary mitigation. However, these measures are not a substitute for patching the system, which should be done as soon as feasible to effectively eliminate the vulnerability.