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Description: <p>Microsoft is investigating reports of a remote code execution vulnerability in MSHTML that affects Microsoft Windows. Microsoft is aware of targeted attacks that attempt to exploit this vulnerability by using specially-crafted Microsoft Office documents.</p> <p>An attacker could craft a malicious ActiveX control to be used by a Microsoft Office document that hosts the browser rendering engine. The attacker would then have to convince the user to open the malicious document. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.</p> <p>Microsoft Defender Antivirus and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint both provide detection and protections for the known vulnerability. Customers should keep antimalware products up to date. Customers who utilize automatic updates do not need to take additional action. Enterprise customers who manage updates should select the detection build 1.349.22.0 or newer and deploy it across their environments. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint alerts will be displayed as: “Suspicious Cpl File Execution”.</p> <p>Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to help protect our customers. This may include providing a security update through our monthly release process or providing an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs.</p> <p>Please see the <strong>Mitigations</strong> and <strong>Workaround</strong> sections for important information about steps you can take to protect your system from this vulnerability.</p> <p><strong>UPDATE</strong> September 14, 2021: Microsoft has released security updates to address this vulnerability. Please see the Security Updates table for the applicable update for your system. We recommend that you install these updates immediately. Please see the FAQ for important information about which updates are applicable to your system.</p>
The **CVSS Base Score** is a score from **0 to 10** that represents the intrinsic severity of a vulnerability. A higher score indicates greater severity.
Database CWE: v4.18
CWE-22: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') ↗
The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.
Fonte: MITRE CWE
The **EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System)** is a score from **0 to 1** that indicates the **probability** that a vulnerability will be exploited in the real world in the next 30 days. A higher value indicates a greater likelihood of exploitation.
The **Percentile** indicates how much higher this vulnerability's EPSS score is compared to all other vulnerabilities in the EPSS database. For example, a percentile of 0.90 (90%) means that 90% of vulnerabilities have an EPSS score equal to or lower than the current one.
*Data updated as of: 2025-12-12
The **CISA KEV Catalog** lists vulnerabilities that have been **actively exploited in the real world**. If a CVE is present in this catalog, it indicates that the threat is immediate and mitigation should be a top priority.
CVE **CVE-2021-40444** **IS PRESENT** in the CISA KEV Catalog!