365 AppsApplication · Microsoft

CVE-2026-55121

MEDIUM · 5.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-07-14
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 16.0.19725.20434 or later.
See remediation →
58/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
No privileges 5 weeks old

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
Out-of-bounds read in Microsoft Office allows an unauthorized attacker to disclose information locally.

In the news

Third-party coverage
Trending covered by 1 outlet this week · latest 1mo ago

Surfaced from public web coverage — external links open in a new tab.

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 · low confidence

An out-of-bounds read vulnerability in Microsoft Office allows a local attacker to read sensitive information beyond the intended buffer boundaries. The vulnerability requires local access but no authentication, leveraging specially crafted Office files to trigger the improper memory access.

MitigationApply available Microsoft Office security updates promptly. Restrict local access to systems handling sensitive documents and maintain current Office installations. Users should avoid opening untrusted Office files from unknown sources.

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
365 AppsApplication
Affected:all versions
Microsoft 365Application
Affected:all versions
Office 2016Application
Affected:all versions
Office 2019Application
Affected:all versions
Office 2021Application
Affected:all versions
Office 2024Application
Affected:all versions
Sharepoint ServerApplication
Affected:< 16.0.19725.20434= 2016= 2019

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
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

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

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

  1. Identify installed Office version
    Open any Office application (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), go to File > Account > About [App] to see the version number
    Affected if Version is any release of Office 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, or Microsoft 365 Apps (all versions are affected)
  2. Check SharePoint Server version if present
    Access SharePoint Administration Center or run Get-SPFarm | Select BuildVersion in SharePoint Management Shell
    Affected if Build version is below 16.0.19725.20434, or exactly equals 2016 or 2019
  3. Confirm local access context
    Verify that the system is accessible to local users or that untrusted files could be placed on the system
    Affected if Local users or untrusted files can reach the system handling Office documents

A system is affected if it runs any version of the listed Office products or SharePoint versions and processes Office files, since the vulnerability triggers through specially crafted documents.

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
Upgrade available Upgrade to 16.0.19725.20434 or later
Fixed in 16.0.19725.20434
Interim mitigation

Apply available Microsoft Office security updates promptly. Restrict local access to systems handling sensitive documents and maintain current Office installations. Users should avoid opening untrusted Office files from unknown sources.

Fix this in 365 Apps Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation1.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
7.0 hours of engineering $1,210
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,936.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2026-55121 — 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-2026-55121 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