CVE-2021-40444 : Detail

CVE-2021-40444

8.8
/
High
Directory Traversal
A01-Broken Access Control
96.93%V3
Network
2021-09-15
11h24 +00:00
2025-02-04
14h44 +00:00
CVE.org
NVD
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CVE Descriptions

Microsoft MSHTML Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

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.

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.

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”.

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.

Please see the Mitigations and Workaround sections for important information about steps you can take to protect your system from this vulnerability.

UPDATE 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.

CVE Informations

Related Weaknesses

CWE-ID Weakness Name Source
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.

Metrics

Metrics Score Severity CVSS Vector Source
V3.1 8.8 HIGH CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:L/E:P/RL:O/RC:C

Base: Exploitabilty Metrics

The Exploitability metrics reflect the characteristics of the thing that is vulnerable, which we refer to formally as the vulnerable component.

Attack Vector

This metric reflects the context by which vulnerability exploitation is possible.

Network

The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed below, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed “remotely exploitable” and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).

Attack Complexity

This metric describes the conditions beyond the attacker’s control that must exist in order to exploit the vulnerability.

Low

Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success when attacking the vulnerable component.

Privileges Required

This metric describes the level of privileges an attacker must possess before successfully exploiting the vulnerability.

None

The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack.

User Interaction

This metric captures the requirement for a human user, other than the attacker, to participate in the successful compromise of the vulnerable component.

Required

Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited. For example, a successful exploit may only be possible during the installation of an application by a system administrator.

Base: Scope Metrics

The Scope metric captures whether a vulnerability in one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.

Scope

Formally, a security authority is a mechanism (e.g., an application, an operating system, firmware, a sandbox environment) that defines and enforces access control in terms of how certain subjects/actors (e.g., human users, processes) can access certain restricted objects/resources (e.g., files, CPU, memory) in a controlled manner. All the subjects and objects under the jurisdiction of a single security authority are considered to be under one security scope. If a vulnerability in a vulnerable component can affect a component which is in a different security scope than the vulnerable component, a Scope change occurs. Intuitively, whenever the impact of a vulnerability breaches a security/trust boundary and impacts components outside the security scope in which vulnerable component resides, a Scope change occurs.

Changed

An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.

Base: Impact Metrics

The Impact metrics capture the effects of a successfully exploited vulnerability on the component that suffers the worst outcome that is most directly and predictably associated with the attack. Analysts should constrain impacts to a reasonable, final outcome which they are confident an attacker is able to achieve.

Confidentiality Impact

This metric measures the impact to the confidentiality of the information resources managed by a software component due to a successfully exploited vulnerability.

Low

There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.

Integrity Impact

This metric measures the impact to integrity of a successfully exploited vulnerability. Integrity refers to the trustworthiness and veracity of information.

High

There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the impacted component. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Availability Impact

This metric measures the impact to the availability of the impacted component resulting from a successfully exploited vulnerability.

Low

Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the impacted component are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Temporal Metrics

The Temporal metrics measure the current state of exploit techniques or code availability, the existence of any patches or workarounds, or the confidence in the description of a vulnerability.

Exploit Code Maturity

This metric measures the likelihood of the vulnerability being attacked, and is typically based on the current state of exploit techniques, exploit code availability, or active, “in-the-wild” exploitation.

Proof-of-Concept

Proof-of-concept exploit code is available, or an attack demonstration is not practical for most systems. The code or technique is not functional in all situations and may require substantial modification by a skilled attacker.

Remediation Level

The Remediation Level of a vulnerability is an important factor for prioritization.

Official fix

A complete vendor solution is available. Either the vendor has issued an official patch, or an upgrade is available.

Report Confidence

This metric measures the degree of confidence in the existence of the vulnerability and the credibility of the known technical details.

Confirmed

Detailed reports exist, or functional reproduction is possible (functional exploits may provide this). Source code is available to independently verify the assertions of the research, or the author or vendor of the affected code has confirmed the presence of the vulnerability.

Environmental Metrics

These metrics enable the analyst to customize the CVSS score depending on the importance of the affected IT asset to a user’s organization, measured in terms of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.
V3.1 8.8 HIGH CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:L

Base: Exploitabilty Metrics

The Exploitability metrics reflect the characteristics of the thing that is vulnerable, which we refer to formally as the vulnerable component.

Attack Vector

This metric reflects the context by which vulnerability exploitation is possible.

Network

The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed below, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed “remotely exploitable” and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).

Attack Complexity

This metric describes the conditions beyond the attacker’s control that must exist in order to exploit the vulnerability.

Low

Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success when attacking the vulnerable component.

Privileges Required

This metric describes the level of privileges an attacker must possess before successfully exploiting the vulnerability.

None

The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack.

User Interaction

This metric captures the requirement for a human user, other than the attacker, to participate in the successful compromise of the vulnerable component.

Required

Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited. For example, a successful exploit may only be possible during the installation of an application by a system administrator.

Base: Scope Metrics

The Scope metric captures whether a vulnerability in one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.

Scope

Formally, a security authority is a mechanism (e.g., an application, an operating system, firmware, a sandbox environment) that defines and enforces access control in terms of how certain subjects/actors (e.g., human users, processes) can access certain restricted objects/resources (e.g., files, CPU, memory) in a controlled manner. All the subjects and objects under the jurisdiction of a single security authority are considered to be under one security scope. If a vulnerability in a vulnerable component can affect a component which is in a different security scope than the vulnerable component, a Scope change occurs. Intuitively, whenever the impact of a vulnerability breaches a security/trust boundary and impacts components outside the security scope in which vulnerable component resides, a Scope change occurs.

Changed

An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.

Base: Impact Metrics

The Impact metrics capture the effects of a successfully exploited vulnerability on the component that suffers the worst outcome that is most directly and predictably associated with the attack. Analysts should constrain impacts to a reasonable, final outcome which they are confident an attacker is able to achieve.

Confidentiality Impact

This metric measures the impact to the confidentiality of the information resources managed by a software component due to a successfully exploited vulnerability.

Low

There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.

Integrity Impact

This metric measures the impact to integrity of a successfully exploited vulnerability. Integrity refers to the trustworthiness and veracity of information.

High

There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the impacted component. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Availability Impact

This metric measures the impact to the availability of the impacted component resulting from a successfully exploited vulnerability.

Low

Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the impacted component are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Temporal Metrics

The Temporal metrics measure the current state of exploit techniques or code availability, the existence of any patches or workarounds, or the confidence in the description of a vulnerability.

Environmental Metrics

These metrics enable the analyst to customize the CVSS score depending on the importance of the affected IT asset to a user’s organization, measured in terms of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.

 [email protected]
V3.1 7.8 HIGH CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Base: Exploitabilty Metrics

The Exploitability metrics reflect the characteristics of the thing that is vulnerable, which we refer to formally as the vulnerable component.

Attack Vector

This metric reflects the context by which vulnerability exploitation is possible.

Local

The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities.

Attack Complexity

This metric describes the conditions beyond the attacker’s control that must exist in order to exploit the vulnerability.

Low

Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success when attacking the vulnerable component.

Privileges Required

This metric describes the level of privileges an attacker must possess before successfully exploiting the vulnerability.

None

The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack.

User Interaction

This metric captures the requirement for a human user, other than the attacker, to participate in the successful compromise of the vulnerable component.

Required

Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited. For example, a successful exploit may only be possible during the installation of an application by a system administrator.

Base: Scope Metrics

The Scope metric captures whether a vulnerability in one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.

Scope

Formally, a security authority is a mechanism (e.g., an application, an operating system, firmware, a sandbox environment) that defines and enforces access control in terms of how certain subjects/actors (e.g., human users, processes) can access certain restricted objects/resources (e.g., files, CPU, memory) in a controlled manner. All the subjects and objects under the jurisdiction of a single security authority are considered to be under one security scope. If a vulnerability in a vulnerable component can affect a component which is in a different security scope than the vulnerable component, a Scope change occurs. Intuitively, whenever the impact of a vulnerability breaches a security/trust boundary and impacts components outside the security scope in which vulnerable component resides, a Scope change occurs.

Unchanged

An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.

Base: Impact Metrics

The Impact metrics capture the effects of a successfully exploited vulnerability on the component that suffers the worst outcome that is most directly and predictably associated with the attack. Analysts should constrain impacts to a reasonable, final outcome which they are confident an attacker is able to achieve.

Confidentiality Impact

This metric measures the impact to the confidentiality of the information resources managed by a software component due to a successfully exploited vulnerability.

High

There is a total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact. For example, an attacker steals the administrator's password, or private encryption keys of a web server.

Integrity Impact

This metric measures the impact to integrity of a successfully exploited vulnerability. Integrity refers to the trustworthiness and veracity of information.

High

There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the impacted component. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Availability Impact

This metric measures the impact to the availability of the impacted component resulting from a successfully exploited vulnerability.

High

There is a total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Temporal Metrics

The Temporal metrics measure the current state of exploit techniques or code availability, the existence of any patches or workarounds, or the confidence in the description of a vulnerability.

Environmental Metrics

These metrics enable the analyst to customize the CVSS score depending on the importance of the affected IT asset to a user’s organization, measured in terms of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.

 [email protected]
V2 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P [email protected]

CISA KEV (Known Exploited Vulnerabilities)

Vulnerability name : Microsoft MSHTML Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

Required action : Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Known To Be Used in Ransomware Campaigns : Known

Added : 2021-11-02 23h00 +00:00

Action is due : 2021-11-16 23h00 +00:00

Important information
This CVE is identified as vulnerable and poses an active threat, according to the Catalog of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (CISA KEV). The CISA has listed this vulnerability as actively exploited by cybercriminals, emphasizing the importance of taking immediate action to address this flaw. It is imperative to prioritize the update and remediation of this CVE to protect systems against potential cyberattacks.

EPSS

EPSS is a scoring model that predicts the likelihood of a vulnerability being exploited.

EPSS Score

The EPSS model produces a probability score between 0 and 1 (0 and 100%). The higher the score, the greater the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited.

EPSS Percentile

The percentile is used to rank CVE according to their EPSS score. For example, a CVE in the 95th percentile according to its EPSS score is more likely to be exploited than 95% of other CVE. Thus, the percentile is used to compare the EPSS score of a CVE with that of other CVE.
EPSS First.org

Products Mentioned

Configuraton 0

Microsoft>>Windows_10_1507 >> Version To (excluding) 10.0.10240.19060

Microsoft>>Windows_10_1607 >> Version To (excluding) 10.0.14393.4651

Microsoft>>Windows_10_1809 >> Version To (excluding) 10.0.17763.2183

Microsoft>>Windows_10_1909 >> Version To (excluding) 10.0.18363.1801

Microsoft>>Windows_10_2004 >> Version To (excluding) 10.0.19041.1237

Microsoft>>Windows_10_20h2 >> Version To (excluding) 10.0.19042.1237

Microsoft>>Windows_10_21h1 >> Version To (excluding) 10.0.19043.1237

Microsoft>>Windows_7 >> Version -

Microsoft>>Windows_8.1 >> Version -

Microsoft>>Windows_rt_8.1 >> Version -

Microsoft>>Windows_server_2004 >> Version To (excluding) 10.0.19041.1237

Microsoft>>Windows_server_2008 >> Version -

Microsoft>>Windows_server_2008 >> Version r2

Microsoft>>Windows_server_2012 >> Version -

Microsoft>>Windows_server_2012 >> Version -

Microsoft>>Windows_server_2016 >> Version To (excluding) 10.0.14393.4651

Microsoft>>Windows_server_2019 >> Version To (excluding) 10.0.17763.2183

Microsoft>>Windows_server_2022 >> Version To (excluding) 10.0.20348.230

Microsoft>>Windows_server_20h2 >> Version To (excluding) 10.0.19042.1237

References