CVE-2025-53740
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 · uneditedUse after free in Microsoft Office allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code 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 confidenceA use-after-free vulnerability in Microsoft Office allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code locally. This is a memory corruption flaw where the application continues to use a pointer after the associated memory has been freed, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution.
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 dataall versions= 2016= 2019= 2021= 2024CVSS 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
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Check installed Office application versionOpen any Office app (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), go to File > Account, and view the About [App] section to see the version number. Alternatively, open Command Prompt and run 'winword /?' or 'excel /?' to display version information.Affected if The displayed version matches 2016, 2019, 2021, or 2024, or the application reports as Microsoft 365 Apps (any version)
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Verify Office installation via Windows RegistryOpen Registry Editor and navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration (for Microsoft 365/2016+) or HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\InstallRoot (for older versions). Check the Version and Platform values.Affected if A version key exists indicating Office 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, or Microsoft 365 Apps is installed
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Confirm if Office features are in useCheck for recent Office document activity or scheduled tasks related to Office (look in Task Scheduler under Microsoft\Office). Review running processes for winword.exe, excel.exe, powerpnt.exe.Affected if Office applications are installed and have been used or are configured to run automatically, making the use-after-free triggerable
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Check for recent Office security updatesOpen Settings > Windows Update > Update history. Filter by 'Microsoft Office' or 'Microsoft 365' updates installed in 2025. Look for security updates with KB numbers.Affected if No Office security updates have been installed in 2025, leaving the known vulnerability unpatched
Your environment is affected if Microsoft Office 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, or any Microsoft 365 Apps version is installed and security updates for this CVE have not been 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 for Office as they become available. Ensure endpoint protection and antivirus are active to detect potential exploitation attempts.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation6.0 h
- Testing3.0 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 $3,984.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-53740 — 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-2025-53740 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