Out-of-bounds ReadWeakness · CWE-125

CVE-2026-55139

MEDIUM · 5.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-07-14
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
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 · moderate confidence

An out-of-bounds read vulnerability exists in Microsoft Office where the software reads memory beyond allocated buffer boundaries. This allows a local attacker to potentially access sensitive information from the application's memory space through a specially crafted file or input.

MitigationApply the latest Microsoft Office security updates to address this vulnerability. Since this is a local attack vector, ensure systems are kept current and consider restricting access to untrusted Office documents.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

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 Microsoft Office version
    Open any Office application (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), go to File > Account > About [App], or run 'winword.exe /?' from Command Prompt to see the version number. Also check Windows Registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\version\Common\InstallRoot
    Affected if The installed version matches a version known to be affected by CVE-2026-55139 according to Microsoft's official security bulletin (compare your version to Microsoft's published affected version range)
  2. Verify if security updates are installed
    Open Windows Update history (Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > View update history) or check the installed updates list for recent Microsoft Office security patches. In Office apps, check File > Account > Update Options > View Update History
    Affected if No recent Microsoft Office security updates are installed, leaving the out-of-bounds read vulnerability unpatched
  3. Assess file opening behavior
    When opening documents from untrusted or unknown sources (especially .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, .docm, .xlsm files), observe if Office applications exhibit unusual behavior, crashes, or memory access patterns
    Affected if The user routinely opens Office documents from untrusted external sources without verification, creating the attack condition for this vulnerability

A user is affected if their installed Microsoft Office version falls within the affected range and lacks the corresponding security patch for CVE-2026-55139, combined with the realistic attack vector of opening a specially crafted Office document.

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 to address this vulnerability. Since this is a local attack vector, ensure systems are kept current and consider restricting access to untrusted Office documents.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation1.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
6.0 hours of engineering $1,040
Get help mitigating

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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2026-55139 — 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-2026-55139 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