CVE-2014-2730
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 · uneditedThe XML parser in Microsoft Office 2007 SP3, 2010 SP1 and SP2, and 2013, and Office for Mac 2011, does not properly detect recursion during entity expansion, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption and persistent application hang) via a crafted XML document containing a large number of nested entity references, as demonstrated by a crafted text/plain e-mail message to Outlook, a similar issue to CVE-2003-1564.
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 confidenceThe XML parser in Microsoft Office 2007 SP3, 2010 SP1/SP2, 2013, and Office for Mac 2011 fails to properly detect recursion during XML entity expansion. Attackers can exploit this by sending crafted XML documents with deeply nested entity references, causing excessive memory consumption and persistent application hang in Outlook.
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= 2007= 2010= 2011= 2013CVSS 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
- Low
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
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 Office versionOpen Control Panel > Programs and Features, locate Microsoft Office entry and note the version, or run 'winword /?' from command prompt to see the versionAffected if Version is 2007, 2010, 2011, or 2013 (any edition)
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Confirm Office service pack levelIn Programs and Features, click on the Office entry and check for installed updates, or check registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration for version detailsAffected if Office 2007 without SP3, Office 2010 without SP1/SP2, or Office 2013 without latest updates are confirmed affected
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Verify Outlook is configuredCheck if Outlook is installed by looking for Outlook.exe in the Office installation directory (typically C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\ or C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\Office15\)Affected if Outlook is installed and configured to process email - the vulnerability specifically causes hangs in Outlook when processing malicious XML attachments
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Inspect Outlook email processing settingsCheck Outlook Trust Center settings (File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings) for XML attachment handling, though note this is a parser-level flaw not a setting that can be disabledAffected if Outlook processes email attachments - the vulnerability triggers when a crafted XML attachment is opened or previewed
Your environment is affected if you are running any edition of Microsoft Office 2007 (pre-SP3), 2010 (pre-SP2), 2011 for Mac, or 2013, and users process email through Outlook where XML attachments could be received.
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 security updates for the affected Office versions. Consider implementing email gateway filtering to block or sanitize XML attachments with excessive entity references before they reach end users.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2014-2730 — 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-2014-2730 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