CVE-2024-21413 — 365 Apps
CRITICALCVE-2024-21413 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Improper Input Validation vulnerability in microsoft 365 apps. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2025-02-06) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Microsoft Outlook Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2025-02-06. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2025-02-27.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- 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-2024-21413.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-21413 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 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Microsoft Outlook Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Affected Products
365 appsmicrosoftoffice 2016microsoftoffice 2019microsoftoffice long term servicing channelmicrosoftResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Microsoft Outlook Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Microsoft Outlook Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Microsoft Outlook Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Microsoft Outlook Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Microsoft Outlook Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Microsoft Outlook Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Microsoft Outlook Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Microsoft Outlook Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Microsoft Outlook Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Microsoft Outlook Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Detection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every microsoft 365 apps deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2024-21413 yet — track the microsoft 365 apps advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-21413 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.