CVE-2016-7265
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 2013 SP1, Excel 2013 RT SP1, Excel 2016, Office Compatibility Pack SP3, Excel Viewer, Excel Services on SharePoint Server 2007 SP3, and Excel Services on SharePoint Server 2010 SP2 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 and related products. Attackers exploit this by tricking users into opening specially crafted Excel documents, allowing them to read sensitive data from process memory or cause a denial of service by crashing the application.
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= 2013= 2016all versionsall versions= 2007= 2010CVSS 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 if Microsoft Excel is installed and identify its versionOpen Excel, go to File > Account > About Excel to view the version, or run 'winver' command, or check registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration for Office 365/2016+ installationsAffected if The installed Excel version is 2007, 2010, 2013, or 2016 (any service pack or build within these release families)
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Check for Microsoft Excel Viewer installationCheck installed programs in Control Panel > Programs and Features, or look for ExcelView.exe in Program Files\Microsoft Office or Program Files (x86)\Microsoft OfficeAffected if Microsoft Excel Viewer is installed (any version)
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Check for Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack installationCheck installed programs in Control Panel > Programs and Features for 'Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint' or check Office installation componentsAffected if Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack is installed (any version)
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Check for Microsoft SharePoint Server installationCheck installed programs in Control Panel > Programs and Features for Microsoft SharePoint Server, or check services.msc for SharePoint services, or check HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SharePoint Server in registryAffected if Microsoft SharePoint Server version 2007 or 2010 is installed
If any of the affected products (Excel 2007/2010/2013/2016, Excel Viewer, Office Compatibility Pack, or SharePoint Server 2007/2010) are installed, the environment is potentially vulnerable to CVE-2016-7265 out-of-bounds read exploitation through specially crafted Excel documents.
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 Excel versions. Avoid opening untrusted or unexpected Excel documents from unknown sources.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 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 $5,120.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2016-7265 — 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-2016-7265 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