{"id":85605,"date":"2025-11-04T11:56:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T11:56:27","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-11-11T11:04:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T17:04:17","slug":"cve-2025-54904-microsoft-office-excel-use-after-free-vulnerability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-54904-microsoft-office-excel-use-after-free-vulnerability\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>CVE-2025-54904: Microsoft Office Excel Use-After-Free Vulnerability<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CVE-2025-54904 is a significant cybersecurity vulnerability detected in Microsoft Office Excel software. This vulnerability presents a serious risk to users worldwide as it allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code locally, potentially leading to system compromise or data leakage. The risk is particularly severe due to the widespread use of Microsoft Office Excel across diverse sectors, including businesses, education, and government.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CVE ID: CVE-2025-54904<br \/>\nSeverity: High (7.8 CVSS Score)<br \/>\nAttack Vector: Local<br \/>\nPrivileges Required: None<br \/>\nUser Interaction: Required<br \/>\nImpact: System compromise or data leakage<\/p>\n<p><strong>Affected Products<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-2063391377\" class=\"ameeb-content-2 ameeb-entity-placement\"><div style=\"border-left: 4px solid #555; padding-left: 20px; margin: 48px 0; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.6; max-width: 720px;\">\r\n  <h2 style=\"margin-top: 0; font-size: 22px; font-weight: 600; display: flex; align-items: center; letter-spacing: -0.02em;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"display: inline-flex; align-items: center; margin-right: 10px;\">\r\n      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Best-App-icon-Ameeba.png\" alt=\"Ameeba Chat Icon\" style=\"width: 42px; height: 42px;\" \/>\r\n    <\/a>\r\n    Share secrets securely\r\n  <\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 14px; color: #d1d5db;\">\r\n    Ameeba is private infrastructure for communication and sensitive work built on encrypted identity instead of exposed corporate identity systems.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 18px; color: #a1a1aa;\">\r\n    Passwords, credentials, confidential files, screenshots, internal discussions, sensitive AI context, and private coordination should not become exposed across ordinary communication platforms.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <ul style=\"list-style: none; padding-left: 0; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #e4e4e7;\">\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 Encrypted identity<\/li>\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 Private Spaces for organizations and teams<\/li>\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 End-to-end encrypted chat, calls, files, and notes<\/li>\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 Sensitive AI work and protected collaboration<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Built for information that cannot leak<\/li>\r\n  <\/ul>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #ffffff;\">\r\n    Our mission is to secure human work alongside AI.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <div style=\"display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 12px;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\/download\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 8px; font-weight: 500;\">\r\n      Download Ameeba\r\n    <\/a>\r\n\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ffffff; color: #ffffff; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 8px; font-weight: 500;\">\r\n      Learn More\r\n    <\/a>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Product | Affected Versions<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft Office Excel | All versions prior to the security patch<\/p>\n<p><strong>How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The exploit takes advantage of a &#8216;use after free&#8217; vulnerability in Microsoft Office Excel. This involves the attacker crafting a specially designed Excel file that, when opened by the victim, manipulates the memory allocation within the application. The attacker can then <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-2945-critical-remote-code-execution-vulnerability-in-pgadmin-4\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"92527\">execute arbitrary code<\/a> in the context of the current user. If the user possesses administrative rights, the attacker could <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-49668-heap-based-buffer-overflow-in-windows-rras-resulting-in-potential-system-compromise\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"92477\">potentially gain control over the affected system<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-1675868433\" class=\"ameeb-content ameeb-entity-placement\"><div class=\"poptin-embedded\" data-id=\"f6b387694f681\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n<p>The following pseudocode demonstrates a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. Note that this is a simplified representation and actual exploitation would require a more sophisticated understanding of Excel&#8217;s memory management and the target system&#8217;s architecture.<\/p>\n<pre><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">create malicious_excel_file\nopen malicious_excel_file in Microsoft Office Excel\n\/\/ The following is the malicious payload\nfree(memory_block)\nwrite_to_memory_block(arbitrary_code)\nexecute(memory_block)\nclose malicious_excel_file<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>This pseudocode demonstrates the high-level process of exploiting the use-after-free vulnerability. The attacker creates a malicious Excel file that, when opened, frees a block of memory. It then writes arbitrary code to the same memory block and executes that code.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview CVE-2025-54904 is a significant cybersecurity vulnerability detected in Microsoft Office Excel software. This vulnerability presents a serious risk to users worldwide as it allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code locally, potentially leading to system compromise or data leakage. The risk is particularly severe due to the widespread use of Microsoft Office Excel across [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"vendor":[82],"product":[],"attack_vector":[],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-85605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","vendor-microsoft"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85605"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85812,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85605\/revisions\/85812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85605"},{"taxonomy":"vendor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vendor?post=85605"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=85605"},{"taxonomy":"attack_vector","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/attack_vector?post=85605"},{"taxonomy":"asset_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/asset_type?post=85605"},{"taxonomy":"severity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/severity?post=85605"},{"taxonomy":"exploit_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exploit_status?post=85605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}