Threats / Microsoft / CVE-2024-38226
CVE-2024-38226
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-09-19
Microsoft Publisher vulnerability
Microsoft Publisher contains a protection mechanism failure that allows attackers to bypass Office macro policies, enabling execution of untrusted or malicious code.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
A protection mechanism bypass in Microsoft Publisher permits circumvention of macro security policies designed to block malicious files. Active exploitation in the wild indicates practical threat to users opening crafted Publisher documents.
CISA KEV Yes · 2024-09-105EPSS 0.02667 (verify live)6CVSS 7.33CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Impact: total4
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
5 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 2024-09-10).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.02667 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 7.3 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:F/RL:O/RC:C) · Affected: Microsoft, Publisher. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CNA-assigned (CVE.org), version 3.1, set at disclosure.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-693 Protection Mechanism Failure.CWE — CNA-assigned (CVE.org); 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 the same day 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 Publisher document containing malicious macros and distribute it as a trusted file.
Business
End users cannot rely on Office macro policies to prevent execution of attacker-controlled code embedded in Publisher files.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I exploit the policy bypass to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user opening the document.
Business
Compromised user accounts lead to lateral movement, data exfiltration, and potential enterprise-wide infection vectors.
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
Coverage & confidence
— what we know, and what we don’tEstablished (cited)
Coverage gaps — stated, not hidden
Disclosure & credit2
Catalogued by microsoftCNA
Credited with finding itNo finder is named in the public CVE record or the scanned vendor advisory — attribution scoped to the sources checked.
Found an error? Propose a correction.
A correction is a cited counter-claim — it must cite a source,
gets reviewed by a second human, and is never auto-applied. See the
correction convention and our identity
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