CVE-2026-20944
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 · uneditedOut-of-bounds read in Microsoft Office Word 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 confidenceThis is an out-of-bounds read vulnerability in Microsoft Office Word. The memory corruption issue can be triggered by a specially crafted Word document, allowing an attacker to execute code locally on the affected system without authorization.
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= 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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Confirm Microsoft Word is installedCheck for the presence of winword.exe on the system. Common locations: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\winword.exe or C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\winword.exe. Also verify via Programs and Features in Control Panel looking for Microsoft Office or Microsoft Word.Affected if winword.exe is found on the system, indicating Word is installed
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Identify the installed Office/Word versionOpen Word, go to File > Account > About Word to see the version number. Alternatively, check the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\InstallRoot for version details.Affected if Version is Microsoft 365 Apps (any version number), Office LTSC 2021, or Office LTSC 2024, which are all listed as affected
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Determine the Office update channel (for Microsoft 365)Check registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration for the UpdateChannel value. For Microsoft 365, all channels are affected.Affected if UpdateChannel is present and running any Microsoft 365 channel, indicating a vulnerable configuration
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Verify default document handling behaviorConfirm that Word is configured to open documents (the default state). This is the standard behavior and required for the vulnerability to be triggered.Affected if Word is able to open .docx or .doc files, which is the default configuration
If Microsoft Word is installed and the version is Microsoft 365 Apps (any version) or Office LTSC 2021/2024, the system is affected by this vulnerability when opening specially crafted Word 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 the latest Microsoft security updates for Office Word to remediate this vulnerability. Until patched, avoid opening Word documents from untrusted or unknown sources.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2026-20944 — 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-2026-20944 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
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