Vulnerability Note VU#749964

Microsoft Excel fails to properly handle malformed IMDATA records

Original Release date: 09 Jan 2007 | Last revised: 23 Jan 2007

Overview

A vulnerability in the way that Microsoft Excel handles malformed image records could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system.

Description

Microsoft Excel fails to properly validate the size of IMDATA records. When a file containing a malformed IMDATA record is opened in Excel, system memory can be corrupted in a way that may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code.

More information is available in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS07-002.

Impact

By convincing a user to open a specially crafted Excel document, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running Excel. If the user is logged in with administrative privileges, the attacker could take complete control of a vulnerable system.

Solution

Apply an update from Microsoft
Microsoft addresses this vulnerability with the updates listed in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS07-002.

Note that Microsoft has re-released the updates in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS07-002 for Excel 2000. See the Microsoft Security Response Center blog for more information.

Do not open untrusted Excel documents

Do not open unfamiliar or unexpected Excel or other Office documents, particularly those hosted on web sites or delivered as email attachments. Please see Cyber Security Tip ST04-010.

Systems Affected (Learn More)

VendorStatusDate NotifiedDate Updated
Microsoft CorporationAffected11 Jul 200609 Jan 2007
If you are a vendor and your product is affected, let us know.

CVSS Metrics (Learn More)

Group Score Vector
Base N/A N/A
Temporal N/A N/A
Environmental N/A N/A

References

Credit

This issue was reported by Jeff Gennari of CERT/CC.

This document was written by Jeff Gennari.

Other Information

  • CVE IDs: CVE-2007-0027
  • Date Public: 09 Jan 2007
  • Date First Published: 09 Jan 2007
  • Date Last Updated: 23 Jan 2007
  • Severity Metric: 11.48
  • Document Revision: 23

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