CVE-2012-1894
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 Office for Mac 2011 uses world-writable permissions for the "Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/" directory and certain other directories, which allows local users to gain privileges by placing a Trojan horse executable file in one of these directories, aka "Office for Mac Improper Folder Permissions 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 confidenceMicrosoft Office for Mac 2011 sets world-writable (777) permissions on its installation directory 'Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/' and related directories. This allows any local user on the system to write executable files into these directories, enabling local privilege escalation when other users or administrators inadvertently run the malicious binaries.
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= 2011CVSS 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
- Local
- Complexity
- M
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Complete
- Integrity
- Complete
- Availability
- Complete
AV:L/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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Confirm Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 is installedRun 'ls -la /Applications/ | grep -i microsoft' to list Microsoft application directories. Verify if 'Microsoft Office 2011' folder exists in /Applications/.Affected if The directory /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/ exists on the system.
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Check permissions on the main Office 2011 directoryRun 'ls -ld /Applications/Microsoft\ Office\ 2011/' to view the directory permissions. Look for the permission string (e.g., drwxrwxrwx).Affected if The permission string shows 'drwxrwxrwx' (777) or any form where 'others' have write permission (o+w flag).
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Inspect permissions on Office subdirectoriesRun 'ls -la /Applications/Microsoft\ Office\ 2011/' to list subdirectories within the Office 2011 folder. Check each entry for permissions.Affected if Any subdirectory under /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/ has world-writable (777) permissions.
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Verify write access for non-ownersAs a non-admin test user, attempt to create a test file in the Office directory using 'touch /Applications/Microsoft\ Office\ 2011/test_write_$$' then remove it. Alternatively, use 'stat' to check the mode for group/other write bits.Affected if A non-privileged user can successfully write to the /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/ directory or its subdirectories.
If Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 is installed and its /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/ directory or any subdirectory has world-writable (777) permissions, the system is affected by this vulnerability.
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 dataChange directory permissions from world-writable (777) to more restrictive permissions (e.g., 755) on the 'Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/' directory and related folders, ensuring only the owner or admin group can write.
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing1.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2012-1894 — 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-2012-1894 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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