Threats / Microsoft / CVE-2012-2539
CVE-2012-2539
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-08-04
Microsoft Word vulnerability
Microsoft Word processes crafted RTF data unsafely, allowing remote code execution or denial-of-service attacks.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
CVE-2012-2539 is a resource exhaustion vulnerability in Word's RTF handling that enables remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or crash the application through malicious document delivery.
CISA KEV Yes · 2022-03-284EPSS 0.53159 (verify live)5CVSS 7.8 (CISA)3CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Impact: total3
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
3 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-03-28).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.53159 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 7.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) · Affected: Microsoft, Word. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CISA-assigned via the ADP container (CVE.org), version 3.1; the CNA left no metrics, so CISA's own score is used ahead of NVD.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-399 Resource Management Errors — weakness family: Resource / availability.CWE assignment from the public NVD record (may be stale); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Technical Impact: totalCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog 3393 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I craft a malicious RTF document exploiting improper resource handling in Word's parser.
Business
Attackers gain a delivery vector for code execution against users opening untrusted documents.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I send the weaponized RTF file via email or host it on a compromised website.
Business
End-user systems become vulnerable when documents are opened without protective controls.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I trigger remote code execution when the target opens the document in Word.
Business
Attackers establish persistence, steal data, or deploy malware across affected endpoints.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05