CVE-2017-0106 in Outlook
Summary
by MITRE
Microsoft Excel 2007 SP3, Microsoft Outlook 2010 SP2, Microsoft Outlook 2013 SP1, and Microsoft Outlook 2016 allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (memory corruption) via a crafted document, aka "Microsoft Office Memory Corruption Vulnerability."
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/28/2022
This vulnerability represents a critical memory corruption flaw affecting multiple Microsoft Office applications including Excel 2007 SP3 and various Outlook versions. The issue stems from improper handling of specially crafted documents that trigger buffer overflows or heap corruption during document parsing operations. According to CWE-121, this vulnerability falls under the category of stack-based buffer overflow conditions where attacker-controlled data is copied into fixed-length buffers without proper bounds checking. The vulnerability is particularly dangerous because it can be exploited through social engineering attacks where users open maliciously crafted Office documents, making it a prime target for targeted attacks and mass mailing campaigns.
The technical exploitation mechanism involves crafting specific document structures that cause the Office applications to allocate insufficient memory for processing certain data elements. When the vulnerable applications attempt to parse these malformed documents, they fail to validate input boundaries properly, leading to memory corruption that can be leveraged to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the logged-on user. This vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1203 which describes exploitation of software vulnerabilities for privilege escalation and code execution. The memory corruption occurs during the parsing of complex Office document formats including those containing embedded objects, macros, or specially formatted data structures that trigger the underlying buffer overflow conditions.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability presents significant risk to enterprise environments where Office documents are frequently exchanged through email systems and file sharing platforms. Attackers can leverage this vulnerability to gain unauthorized access to systems, escalate privileges, and potentially establish persistent backdoors. The vulnerability affects not only individual users but also enterprise networks where a single compromised machine can serve as a foothold for broader network infiltration. Organizations running affected versions of Microsoft Office are particularly vulnerable to targeted attacks, as the exploit requires minimal user interaction beyond opening the malicious document. The denial of service aspect of this vulnerability can also be used to disrupt business operations by causing application crashes and system instability.
Mitigation strategies should include immediate deployment of Microsoft security patches and updates, along with implementing strict document validation policies. Organizations should consider enabling macro security settings, disabling automatic execution of macros, and implementing email filtering solutions that can detect and block potentially malicious Office documents. Network segmentation and endpoint protection solutions should be enhanced to monitor for suspicious file execution patterns. According to Microsoft security best practices, administrators should also implement regular vulnerability assessments and maintain up-to-date threat intelligence feeds to identify potential exploitation attempts. Additionally, user education programs should emphasize the importance of not opening suspicious email attachments and verifying document sources before opening Office files. The vulnerability highlights the importance of maintaining current security patches and implementing defense-in-depth strategies to protect against zero-day exploits targeting widely used enterprise software.