OfficeApplication · Microsoft

CVE-2025-27744

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-04-08
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
80/100
Remediation priority · High
Zero-click

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 · unedited
Improper access control in Microsoft Office allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.

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 · moderate confidence

This is a local privilege escalation vulnerability in Microsoft Office stemming from improper access control. An authorized attacker with local access to a system can exploit this flaw to elevate their privileges beyond their current assigned permissions. The vulnerability resides in how Office handles access control checks for certain operations or resources.

MitigationApply the latest Microsoft Office security updates and patches as they become available. Ensure users operate with the principle of least privilege to limit the impact of potential exploitation.

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
OfficeApplication
Affected:= 2016

CVSS 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
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Verify Office 2016 installation
    Open Control Panel > Programs and Features, or run 'Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\* | Select-Object DisplayName, DisplayVersion' in PowerShell to list installed Microsoft Office products
    Affected if Microsoft Office 2016 is listed as installed
  2. Confirm exact Office version
    Launch any Office application (e.g., Word), go to File > Account > About Word, or check via 'winword /?' command in Command Prompt
    Affected if Version displays as Microsoft Office 2016 (exact build not specified in CVE, compare to vendor advisories)
  3. Check Windows security updates
    Open Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > View update history, or run 'Get-HotFix | Where-Object {$_.Description -eq "Security Update"}' in PowerShell to list installed security patches
    Affected if No security update matching CVE-2025-27744 is installed (patch date and KB number available in Microsoft security bulletin)
  4. Assess user context and privileges
    Open Command Prompt and run 'whoami /all' to view current user group memberships and privileges
    Affected if Current user has limited privileges but could potentially be elevated via the access control flaw (exploitation requires local access)

If Microsoft Office 2016 is installed and the corresponding security update for CVE-2025-27744 has not been applied, the system is vulnerable to local privilege escalation via improper access control in Office.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Apply the latest Microsoft Office security updates and patches as they become available. Ensure users operate with the principle of least privilege to limit the impact of potential exploitation.

Fix this in Office Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
11.0 hours of engineering $1,930
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An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,088.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-27744 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-27744 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

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.

What belongs here
  • 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