cbcvebase.
CVE-2008-0081
published 2008-01-16

CVE-2008-0081: Unspecified vulnerability in Microsoft Excel 2000 SP3 through 2003 SP2, Viewer 2003, and Office 2004 for Mac allows user-assisted remote attackers to execute…

PriorityP276critical9.8CVSS 3.1
AVNACLPRNUINSUCHIHAH
ITWEXPLOITVulnCheck KEV
Exploited in the wild
EPSS
57.91%
99.0th percentile
Unspecified vulnerability in Microsoft Excel 2000 SP3 through 2003 SP2, Viewer 2003, and Office 2004 for Mac allows user-assisted remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via crafted macros, aka "Macro Validation Vulnerability," a different vulnerability than CVE-2007-3490.

Affected

5 ranges
VendorProductVersion rangeFixed in
microsoftexcel
microsoftexcel
microsoftexcel
microsoftexcel_viewer
microsoftoffice

Detection & IOCsextracted from sources · hover to see the quote

filenameJava.exe
  • A malicious macro embedded in a .doc file creates and executes a masquerading executable named Java.exe; monitor for Office processes spawning unexpected child processes, especially those masquerading as Java.
  • The fake Java.exe process subsequently opens a backdoor and performs database reads/dumps; alert on Java.exe processes that exhibit database read activity without a legitimate Java-based SQL client context.
  • Detect the attack chain: external network read → download of credential/cracking tool → execution of that tool, using temporal ordering of events.
  • Monitor for anomalous child processes spawned by trusted parent processes (e.g., browser or Office) that are not part of the learned invariant set of normal child processes.
  • Alert on sqlservr.exe sending unusually large amounts of data to outlier destination IPs, which may indicate database exfiltration following exploitation.
  • ·The CVE-2008-0081 exploit is delivered via crafted macros in Office documents; the malicious macro execution vector requires macro execution to be enabled in the target Office application.
  • ·The attack requires user interaction (user-assisted); the victim must open the malicious document attachment for the macro payload to trigger.
  • ·The malware masquerades as a legitimate Java runtime (Java.exe), making signature-based and simple whitelist-based detection unreliable without behavioral context.

CVSS provenance

nvdv3.19.8CRITICALCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
nvdv2.09.3CRITICALAV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
vulncheck7.5HIGH
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