CVE-2009-3129 vulnerability in Microsoft Products
Published on November 11, 2009

Microsoft Office Excel 2002 SP3, 2003 SP3, and 2007 SP1 and SP2; Office 2004 and 2008 for Mac; Open XML File Format Converter for Mac; Office Excel Viewer 2003 SP3; Office Excel Viewer SP1 and SP2; and Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats SP1 and SP2 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a spreadsheet with a FEATHEADER record containing an invalid cbHdrData size element that affects a pointer offset, aka "Excel Featheader Record Memory Corruption Vulnerability."

Vendor Advisory NVD

Known Exploited Vulnerability

This Microsoft Excel Featheader Record Memory Corruption Vulnerability is part of CISA's list of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities. Microsoft Office Excel allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a spreadsheet with a FEATHEADER record containing an invalid cbHdrData size element that affects a pointer offset.

The following remediation steps are recommended / required by March 24, 2022: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2009-3129 can be exploited with local system access, requires user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. It has an exploitability score of 1.8 out of four. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to be very high.

What is a Memory Corruption Vulnerability?

The software writes data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer. Typically, this can result in corruption of data, a crash, or code execution. The software may modify an index or perform pointer arithmetic that references a memory location that is outside of the boundaries of the buffer. A subsequent write operation then produces undefined or unexpected results.

CVE-2009-3129 has been classified to as a Memory Corruption vulnerability or weakness.

Products Associated with CVE-2009-3129

You can be notified by stack.watch whenever vulnerabilities like CVE-2009-3129 are published in these products:

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel Viewer

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Open Xml File Format Converter

What versions are vulnerable to CVE-2009-3129?