CVE-2006-1540
MSO.DLL in Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP (2002), and Office 2003 allows user-assisted attackers to cause a denial of service and…
- 9.3HighCVSS base score
- 28.6%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 1.8% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- 1Public exploitsMetasploit, Nuclei and Exploit-DB
Description
MSO.DLL in Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP (2002), and Office 2003 allows user-assisted attackers to cause a denial of service and execute arbitrary code via multiple attack vectors, as originally demonstrated using a crafted document record with a malformed string, as demonstrated by replacing a certain "01 00 00 00" byte sequence with an "FF FF FF FF" byte sequence, possibly causing an invalid array index, in (1) an Excel .xls document, which triggers an access violation in ole32.dll; (2) an Excel .xlw document, which triggers an access violation in excel.exe; (3) a Word document, which triggers an access violation in mso.dll in winword.exe; and (4) a PowerPoint document, which triggers an access violation in powerpnt.txt. NOTE: after the initial disclosure, this issue was demonstrated by triggering an integer overflow using an inconsistent size for a Unicode "Sheet Name" string.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. The public collections list an Exploit-DB entry for it. A reference of the record is tagged as an exploit.
Show the exploits2
Exploit-DB1 entry
- Microsoft Office Products - Array Index Bounds Error (PoC) (Exploit-DB entry) (opens in a new tab)
EDB-ID 1615dos, windowspublished 27 Mar 2006Verified
References tagged exploit1 reference
- 1615 (opens in a new tab)exploitx_refsource_EXPLOIT-DBx_transferred
Modules, templates and exploits as listed by the Metasploit Framework (BSD-3-Clause), ProjectDiscovery's Nuclei templates (MIT) and the Exploit Database (GPLv2), read once a day. Where the data comes from
Timeline
ID reserved
By mitre
Published
- 18 years later
· 18 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVDNVD · Modified | 2.0 | High9.3 | AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 28.6% · top 1.8% of all CVEs (11 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 9.3.
Affected products
n/a
- affected n/a
References
References14
- 20060710 SYMSA-2006-007: Microsoft Office Malformed String Parsing Vulnerability (opens in a new tab)mailing-listx_refsource_BUGTRAQx_transferred
- 21012 (opens in a new tab)third-party-advisoryx_refsource_SECUNIAx_transferred
- ADV-2006-2756 (opens in a new tab)vdb-entryx_refsource_VUPENx_transferred
- MS06-038 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_MSx_transferred
- VU#609868 (opens in a new tab)third-party-advisoryx_refsource_CERT-VNx_transferred
- office-string-parse-bo(27607) (opens in a new tab)vdb-entryx_refsource_XFx_transferred
- office-property-string-bo(27609) (opens in a new tab)vdb-entryx_refsource_XFx_transferred
- 17252 (opens in a new tab)vdb-entryx_refsource_BIDx_transferred
- 18889 (opens in a new tab)vdb-entryx_refsource_BIDx_transferred
- TA06-192A (opens in a new tab)third-party-advisoryx_refsource_CERTx_transferred
- 27150 (opens in a new tab)vdb-entryx_refsource_OSVDBx_transferred
- oval:org.mitre.oval:def:639 (opens in a new tab)vdb-entrysignaturex_refsource_OVALx_transferred
- 1615 (opens in a new tab)exploitx_refsource_EXPLOIT-DBx_transferred
- 1015855 (opens in a new tab)vdb-entryx_refsource_SECTRACKx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2006-1544 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2006-1540)Record last updated .