CVE-2009-0563 — Microsoft
HIGHCVE-2009-0563 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) Out-of-bounds Write vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-06-08) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Stack-based buffer overflow in Microsoft Office Word 2002 SP3, 2003 SP3, and 2007 SP1 and SP2; Microsoft Office for Mac 2004 and 2008; Open XML File Format Converter for Mac; Microsoft…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2022-06-08. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-06-22.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2009-0563.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2009-0563 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 50–90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Stack-based buffer overflow in Microsoft Office Word 2002 SP3, 2003 SP3, and 2007 SP1 and SP2; Microsoft Office for Mac 2004 and 2008; Open XML File Format Converter for Mac; Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003 SP3; Microsoft Office Word Viewer; and Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats SP1 and SP2 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a Word document with a crafted tag containing an invalid length field, aka "Word Buffer Overflow Vulnerability."
Affected Products
officemicrosoftoffice compatibility packmicrosoftoffice word viewermicrosoftopen xml file format convertermicrosoftResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2009-0563 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Stop feeding it untrusted input: reject or quarantine files and payloads from unverified sources until you can upgrade, restrict accepted formats to the ones you actually need, and run the parsing or decoding step in a least-privileged sandbox or short-lived worker so a crash or corrupted read cannot reach the rest of the process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2009-0563 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.