CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2020-16855 — Microsoft Office security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.5

<p>An information disclosure vulnerability exists when Microsoft Office software reads out of bound memory due to an uninitialized variable, which could disclose the contents of memory. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could view out of bound memory.</p> <p>Exploitation of the vulnerability requires that a user open a specially crafted file with an affected version of Microsoft Office software.</p> <p>The security update addresses the vulnerability by properly initializing the affected variable.</p>

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.5 (3.1)
Published
2020-09-11
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
windows/system
Weaknesses
CWE-125, CWE-908

Affected products

  • microsoft / office / 2016
  • microsoft / office / 2019

Matched remediation archetype

Buffer bounds, memory safety, and memory corruption

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Identify affected native-code versions, build flags, architectures, parsers, codecs, drivers, and input paths in all shipped artifacts.
  • Determine whether untrusted data reaches the affected routine and the process privilege, sandbox, and network exposure.
  • Confirm statically linked, vendored, firmware, and platform-provided copies, not only package-manager records.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the maintained upstream correction or replace the affected component, then rebuild every dependent artifact from clean inputs.
  • Adopt bounds-checked interfaces, validated sizes and integer conversions, clear ownership, and memory-safe components where practical.
  • Enable supported compiler and runtime hardening and add sanitized tests and fuzz regression seeds derived from non-weaponized fixtures.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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