Microsoft Office Publisher Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability

What is CVE-2023-21715?

Microsoft Office Publisher contains a security feature bypass vulnerability that allows for a local, authenticated attack on a targeted system.

Who is affected by CVE-2023-21715?

Affects anyone using Microsoft 365 or Office to compose, store, or send email, documents, or spreadsheets. In a small practice, that's typically where client communications, engagement letters, and case notes live — credential compromise here means an attacker reads everything that platform stores.

What should I do about CVE-2023-21715?

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

If you don't have someone in-house to verify the patch deployed across every endpoint — or you're not sure whether you're affected — that's exactly the kind of triage we do. Request a free review.

Microsoft fix

• Click to Run (Security Update)

Sourced from Microsoft Security Update Guide (CVRF document 2023-Feb).

CISA due date

CISA's listed due date: March 7, 2023.

Federal civilian agencies work under CISA's Binding Operational Directive 26-04, which replaced BOD 22-01 on June 10, 2026. It sets the deadline for each affected system by:

• How exposed that system is to the internet
• Whether the attack can be automated
• How much control it gives an attacker

Its table gives catalogued vulnerabilities 3 or 14 days.

None of this binds a private business, but treat the date as a strong recommendation, especially if you handle regulated data (HIPAA, GLBA, ABA model rules).

EPSS

EPSS score: 12.0% — higher than 96% of all scored CVEs.

EPSS estimates the probability of exploitation activity in the next 30 days. Every entry on this site is already confirmed exploited, so read it as relative urgency among the things you still have open, not as permission to wait.

Score dated 2026-10-16, from the FIRST.org Exploit Prediction Scoring System.

Other exploited Microsoft Office entries

More CISA KEV entries for Microsoft Office. Same product line, same actively-exploited status.

• CVE-2009-0238: Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution
• CVE-2026-21514: Microsoft Office Word Reliance on Untrusted Inputs in a Security Decision Vulnerability
• CVE-2026-21509: Microsoft Office Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
• CVE-2009-0556: Microsoft Office PowerPoint Code Injection Vulnerability
• CVE-2007-0671: Microsoft Office Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
• CVE-2023-23397: Microsoft Office Outlook Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
• CVE-2009-0563: Microsoft Office Buffer Overflow Vulnerability
• CVE-2013-1331: Microsoft Office Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

Browse more

• All Microsoft KEV entries
• All SMB-relevant KEV entries

Source

This entry comes from CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, public US-Government data we pull daily. The plain-language framing and the what-to-do guidance above are ours. View the original entry on cisa.gov.