Microsoft Warns of Unpatched Office Vulnerability Leading to Data Exposure
Vulnerabilities mentionedAll →
| CVE | Vulnerability | CVSS | EPSS | Flags | Affected | Exposure | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2024-21302 | Summary: As of July 8, 2025 Microsoft has completed mitigations to address this vulnerability. Summary: As of July 8, 2025 Microsoft has completed mitigations to address this vulnerability. See KB5042562: Guidance for blocking rollback of virtualization-based security related updates and the Recommended Actions section of this CVE for guidance on how to protect your systems from this vulnerability. An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in Windows based systems supporting Virtualization Based Security (VBS), including a subset of Azure Virtual Machine SKUS. This vulnerability enables an attacker with administrator privileges to replace current versions of Windows system files with outdated versions. By exploiting this vulnerability, an attacker could reintroduce previously mitigated vulnerabilities, circumvent some features of VBS, and exfiltrate data protected by VBS. Update: July 10, 2025 Microsoft has addressed this vulnerability for Windows 10 1507, Windows 10, version 1607, Windows 10, version 1809, and Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2018. This ensures that mitigations are available to protect all supported versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11 from this vulnerability. See the available mitigations and deployment guidelines described in KB5042562: Guidance for blocking rollback of virtualization-based security related updates. Update: August 13, 2024 Microsoft has released the August 2024 security updates that include an opt-in revocation policy mitigation to address this vulnerability. Customers running affected versions of Windows are encouraged to review KB5042562: Guidance for blocking rollback of virtualization-based security related updates to assess if this opt-in policy meets the needs of their environment before implementing this mitigation. There are risks associated with this mitigation that should be understood prior to applying it to your systems. Detailed information about these risks is also available in KB5042562. Details: A security researcher informed Microsoft of an elevation of privilege vulnerability in Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Server 2016, and higher based systems including Azure Virtual Machines (VM) that support VBS. For more information on Windows versions and VM SKUs supporting VBS, reference: Virtualization-based Security (VBS) | Microsoft Learn. The vulnerability enables an attacker with administrator privileges on the target system to replace current Windows system files with outdated versions. Successful... See more at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2024-21302 NVD description · AI analysis pending | 6.7 | 2% |
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| CVE-2024-38200 | Microsoft Office Spoofing Vulnerability Microsoft Office Spoofing Vulnerability NVD description · AI analysis pending | 6.5 | 20% |
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| CVE-2024-38202 | Summary Microsoft was notified that an elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in Windows Update, potentially enabling an attacker with basic user privilege Summary Microsoft was notified that an elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in Windows Update, potentially enabling an attacker with basic user privileges to reintroduce previously mitigated vulnerabilities or circumvent some features of Virtualization Based Security (VBS). However, an attacker attempting to exploit this vulnerability requires additional interaction by a privileged user to be successful. Microsoft has developed a security update to mitigate this threat which was made available October 08, 2024 and is provided in the Security Updates table of this CVE for customers to download. Note: Depending on your version of Windows, additional steps may be required to update Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) to be protected from this vulnerability. Please refer to the FAQ section for more information. Guidance for customers who cannot immediately implement the update is provided in the Recommended Actions section of this CVE to help reduce the risks associated with this vulnerability and to protect their systems. If there are any further updates regarding mitigations for this vulnerability, this CVE will be updated and customers will be notified. We highly encourage customers to subscribe to Security Update Guide notifications to receive an alert if an update occurs. Details A security researcher informed Microsoft of an elevation of privilege vulnerability in Windows Update potentially enabling an attacker with basic user privileges to reintroduce previously mitigated vulnerabilities or circumvent some features of VBS. For exploitation to succeed, an attacker must trick or convince an Administrator or a user with delegated permissions into performing a system restore which inadvertently triggers the vulnerability. Microsoft has developed a security update to mitigate this threat which was made available October 08, 2024 and is provided in the Security Updates table of this CVE for customers to download. Note: Depending on your version of Windows, additional steps may be required to update Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) to be protected from this vulnerability. Please refer to the FAQ section for more information. Guidance for customers who cannot immediately implement the update is provided in the Recommended Actions section of this CVE to help reduce the risks associated with this vulnerability and to protect their systems. If there are any further... See more at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2024-38202 NVD description · AI analysis pending | 7.3 | 2% |
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Full article499 words · extracted from thehackernews.com · click to collapse
Ravie LakshmananAug 10, 2024Vulnerability / Enterprise Security
Microsoft has disclosed an unpatched zero-day in Office that, if successfully exploited, could result in unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information to malicious actors.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-38200 (CVSS score: 7.5), has been described as a spoofing flaw that affects the following versions of Office -
- Microsoft Office 2016 for 32-bit edition and 64-bit editions
- Microsoft Office LTSC 2021 for 32-bit and 64-bit editions
- Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise for 32-bit and 64-bit Systems
- Microsoft Office 2019 for 32-bit and 64-bit editions
Credited with discovering and reporting the vulnerability are researchers Jim Rush and Metin Yunus Kandemir.
"In a web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a website (or leverage a compromised website that accepts or hosts user-provided content) that contains a specially crafted file that is designed to exploit the vulnerability," Microsoft said in an advisory.
"However, an attacker would have no way to force the user to visit the website. Instead, an attacker would have to convince the user to click a link, typically by way of an enticement in an email or Instant Messenger message, and then convince the user to open the specially crafted file."
A formal patch for CVE-2024-38200 is expected to be shipped on August 13 as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday updates, but the tech giant said it identified an alternative fix that it has enabled via Feature Flighting as of July 30, 2024.
It also noted that while customers are already protected on all in-support versions of Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365, it's essential to update to the final version of the patch when it becomes available in a couple of days for optimal protection.
Microsoft, which has tagged the flaw with an "Exploitation Less Likely" assessment, has further outlined three mitigation strategies -
- Configuring the "Network Security: Restrict NTLM: Outgoing NTLM traffic to remote servers" policy setting provides the ability to allow, block, or audit outgoing NTLM traffic from a computer running Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, or later to any remote server running the Windows operating system
- Add users to the Protected Users Security Group, which prevents the use of NTLM as an authentication mechanism
- Block TCP 445/SMB outbound from the network by using a perimeter firewall, a local firewall, and via VPN settings to prevent the sending of NTLM authentication messages to remote file shares
The disclosure comes as Microsoft said it's working on addressing two zero-day flaws (CVE-2024-38202 and CVE-2024-21302) that could be exploited to "unpatch" up-to-date Windows systems and reintroduce old vulnerabilities.
Earlier this week, Elastic Security Labs lifted the lid on a variety of methods that attackers can avail in order to run malicious apps without triggering Windows Smart App Control and SmartScreen warnings, including a technique called LNK stomping that's been exploited in the wild for over six years.
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Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://thehackernews.com/2024/08/microsoft-warns-of-unpatched-office.html