CVE-2010-3215
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedMicrosoft Word 2002 SP3 and Office 2004 for Mac do not properly handle unspecified return values during parsing of a Word document, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted document that triggers memory corruption, aka "Word Return Value Vulnerability."
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceA memory corruption vulnerability in Microsoft Word 2002 SP3 and Office 2004 for Mac allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted Word document. The vulnerability stems from improper handling of unspecified return values during document parsing, leading to memory corruption that can be leveraged for code execution.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 2004= 2002CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- M
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Complete
- Integrity
- Complete
- Availability
- Complete
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify installed Microsoft Word version on WindowsOpen Word, go to Help > About Microsoft Office Word, or check the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Word\InstallRoot for version 10.0 (Word 2002)Affected if The version displays as Word 2002 (10.0) with Service Pack 3 installed
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Identify installed Microsoft Office version on MacOpen any Office application, go to the application menu > About Microsoft Office, or check /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/ or /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/ folders for installationAffected if Office 2004 for Mac is installed (version 11.x)
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Confirm the vulnerability attack surfaceThe vulnerability is triggered when parsing specially crafted Word documents. Check if users in your environment open .doc files from external or untrusted sourcesAffected if Users open Word documents from untrusted sources with affected Word versions installed
You are affected if Microsoft Word 2002 SP3 (Windows) or Office 2004 for Mac is installed and users can open specially crafted Word documents.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataApply the Microsoft security update (MS10-056) to affected Word installations. Until patched, avoid opening Word documents from untrusted sources and disable macro execution in Word.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2010-3215 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2010-3215 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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