Security News > 2023 > September > You patched yet? Years-old Microsoft security holes still hot targets for cyber-crooks
Qualys's method for ranking these security holes took into account several factors, we're told, including the number of attackers known to exploit the vulnerability.
Finally, more mature exploit code and inclusion in the US government's CISA list of top-exploited vulnerabilities will also boost a bug's rank on Qualys' index.
The No. 1 vulnerability is a six-year old memory corruption bug in Microsoft Office, tracked as CVE-2017-11882, has been exploited as recently as August 31, according to Qualys.
It's a remote code execution vulnerability that affects specific Microsoft Office and WordPad versions when they parse specially crafted files.
An attacker would need to convince a user to visit a malicious website laced with code designed to exploit the vulnerability.
The No. 4 ranked vulnerability is yet another RCE bug in Microsoft Office and WordPad tracked as CVE-2017-8570.
News URL
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/09/05/qualys_top_20_vulnerabilities/
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Related Vulnerability
| DATE | CVE | VULNERABILITY TITLE | RISK |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-11-15 | CVE-2017-11882 | Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer vulnerability in Microsoft Office Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Office 2010 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Office 2013 Service Pack 1, and Microsoft Office 2016 allow an attacker to run arbitrary code in the context of the current user by failing to properly handle objects in memory, aka "Microsoft Office Memory Corruption Vulnerability". | 9.3 |
| 2017-07-11 | CVE-2017-8570 | Unspecified vulnerability in Microsoft Office Microsoft Office allows a remote code execution vulnerability due to the way that it handles objects in memory, aka "Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability". | 9.3 |