CVE-2009-0238
Published on February 25, 2009

Microsoft Office Excel 2000 SP3, 2002 SP3, 2003 SP3, and 2007 SP1; Excel Viewer 2003 Gold and SP3; Excel Viewer; Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats SP1; and Excel in Microsoft Office 2004 and 2008 for Mac allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted Excel document that triggers an access attempt on an invalid object, as exploited in the wild in February 2009 by Trojan.Mdropper.AC.

Vendor Advisory NVD

Known Exploited Vulnerability

This Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution vulnerability is part of CISA's list of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities. Microsoft Office Excel contains a remote code execution vulnerability that could allow an attacker to take complete control of an affected system if a user opens a specially crafted Excel file that includes a malformed object.

The following remediation steps are recommended / required by April 28, 2026: Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2009-0238 is exploitable with network access, requires user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. This vulnerability is known to be actively exploited by threat actors. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to be very high.

Attack Vector:
NETWORK
Attack Complexity:
LOW
Privileges Required:
NONE
User Interaction:
REQUIRED
Scope:
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact:
HIGH
Integrity Impact:
HIGH
Availability Impact:
HIGH

Weakness Type

What is a Code Injection Vulnerability?

The software constructs all or part of a code segment using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the syntax or behavior of the intended code segment.

CVE-2009-0238 has been classified to as a Code Injection vulnerability or weakness.


Exploit Probability

EPSS
57.18%
Percentile
98.15%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) scores estimate the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. The percentile shows you how this score compares to all other vulnerabilities.