CVE-2015-6122
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 2007 SP3, Excel 2010 SP2, Excel for Mac 2011, Office Compatibility Pack SP3, and Excel Viewer allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted Office document, aka "Microsoft Office Memory Corruption 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 exists in Microsoft Excel and related Office products when parsing specially crafted Office documents. The flaw allows remote attackers to achieve arbitrary code execution by tricking users into opening maliciously crafted Excel files (.xlsx, .xls, etc.). This is a classic heap-based buffer overflow or use-after-free condition in the Office file parsing engine.
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= 2011all versionsall versionsCVSS 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 installed Microsoft Excel version on WindowsOpen Excel, go to File > Account > About Excel, or check the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\{version}\Excel\InstallRootAffected if Version is 2007, 2010, or any version before the MS15-131 patch (version 14.0.7162.5000 for Excel 2010, 12.0.6731.5000 for Excel 2007)
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Check installed Microsoft Excel for Mac versionOpen Excel for Mac, go to Excel > About Microsoft Excel, or check Applications folder for Microsoft Excel and view Get InfoAffected if Version is 2011 or any version before the MS15-131 patch (version 14.5.9 or later is fixed)
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Check if Microsoft Excel Viewer is installedCheck for ExcelViewer.exe in Program Files or Program Files (x86), or check registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ExcelViewer\InstallRootAffected if Excel Viewer is present at any version (all versions affected)
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Check if Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack is installedCheck for presence of Excelcnv.exe (Excel converter) or check registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\CompatibilityPack\InstallRoot, or look in Program Files for Office12 or Office15 foldersAffected if Compatibility Pack is present at any version (all versions affected)
A user is affected if any version of Excel 2007, 2010, Excel for Mac 2011, Excel Viewer, or Office Compatibility Pack is installed without the MS15-131 security patch applied.
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 Bulletin MS15-131 (or subsequent cumulative updates) to patch all affected Excel versions. Until patched, enforce strict policies against opening Office attachments from untrusted sources and disable macro execution in Office documents.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,560.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2015-6122 — 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-2015-6122 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