CVE-2016-7264
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, Office Compatibility Pack SP3, Excel Viewer, Excel for Mac 2011, and Excel 2016 for Mac allow remote attackers to obtain sensitive information from process memory or cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds read) via a crafted document, aka "Microsoft Office Information Disclosure 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 an out-of-bounds read vulnerability in Microsoft Excel that allows remote attackers to read sensitive information from process memory or cause a denial of service via a specially crafted Excel document. The vulnerability affects multiple Excel versions for Windows and Mac, including Excel 2007 SP3, Office Compatibility Pack SP3, Excel Viewer, Excel for Mac 2011, and Excel 2016 for Mac.
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= 2011= 2016all 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
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H
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 run 'winword.exe /?' from command line, or check Add/Remove Programs for Excel version numberAffected if The installed version is Excel 2007 or later (version 12.0 or higher)
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Check for Microsoft Excel Viewer installationSearch for ExcelViewer.exe in Program Files, or check Add/Remove Programs for 'Excel Viewer'Affected if Excel Viewer is present on the system (all versions are affected)
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Check for Office Compatibility Pack installationSearch for Excelcnv.exe (Excel Converter) in Program Files, or check Add/Remove Programs for 'Office Compatibility Pack'Affected if Office Compatibility Pack is installed (all versions are affected)
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Check Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011 versionOn Mac, open Excel > About Microsoft Excel, or check Applications folder for Excel version numberAffected if Excel for Mac 2011 is installed (any version)
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Check Microsoft Excel for Mac 2016 versionOn Mac, open Excel > About Microsoft Excel, or check Applications folder for Excel version 2016Affected if Excel for Mac 2016 is installed (any version)
The environment is affected if any Microsoft Excel product matching the criteria (Excel 2007+, Excel Viewer, Office Compatibility Pack, Excel for Mac 2011, or Excel for Mac 2016) is installed without the MS16-148 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 updates (MS16-148 or subsequent patches) to affected Excel installations. Avoid opening untrusted or unexpected Excel documents from unknown or untrusted sources.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,648.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2016-7264 — 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-2016-7264 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