CVE-2011-1278
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 Excel 2002 SP3 and Office 2004 for Mac do not properly validate record information during parsing of Excel spreadsheets, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (memory corruption) via a crafted spreadsheet, aka "Excel WriteAV 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 confidenceThis is a memory corruption vulnerability in Microsoft Excel 2002 SP3 and Office 2004 for Mac where improper validation of record information during Excel spreadsheet parsing allows remote code execution or denial of service via crafted malicious spreadsheet files.
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= 2002= 2004CVSS 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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Check Microsoft Excel version on WindowsOpen Excel, click Help > About Microsoft Excel. Alternatively, check the Windows Registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\version\Excel\ProductVersionAffected if The version displayed is Excel 2002 (version 10.x) or the registry shows version 10.0
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Check Microsoft Office version on MacOpen any Office application (Excel, Word, etc.), click the application name in the menu bar, then select About Microsoft Office (or About Excel)Affected if The version shown is Office 2004 for Mac (version 11.x)
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Determine if security updates are installedOn Windows, open Excel, go to Help > Check for Updates, or check Windows Update history for security updates released after June 2011. On Mac, check Software Update for any Office 2004 updatesAffected if No security updates for CVE-2011-1278 have been installed, or the system is fully unpatched since June 2011
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Verify spreadsheet parsing feature is in useThis vulnerability is triggered when Excel parses a specially crafted spreadsheet file. Check if users have the ability to open external or untrusted Excel filesAffected if Users can open or receive Excel files from external sources, and the installed Excel 2002 or Office 2004 for Mac remains unpatched
A user is affected if they are running Microsoft Excel 2002 on Windows or Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac without the CVE-2011-1278 security patch installed and regularly open Excel files from external or untrusted sources.
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 Microsoft's security patches for the affected Excel versions or upgrade to newer Office versions that have incorporated the fix; users should avoid opening Excel files from untrusted sources.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2011-1278 — 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-2011-1278 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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A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- 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
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data