How severe is CVE-2009-3129?

CVE-2009-3129 has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.8 (HIGH). EPSS estimates a 84.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days. It is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

CVE-2009-3129: Microsoft Excel Featheader Record Memory Corruption

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities

Microsoft Excel Featheader Record Memory Corruption Vulnerability is confirmed as actively exploited and is listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Added to KEV

2022-03-03

Remediation due

2022-03-24

Required action
Apply updates per vendor instructions.

CISA notes
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2009-3129

Description

Microsoft Office Excel 2002 SP3, 2003 SP3, and 2007 SP1 and SP2; Office 2004 and 2008 for Mac; Open XML File Format Converter for Mac; Office Excel Viewer 2003 SP3; Office Excel Viewer SP1 and SP2; and Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats SP1 and SP2 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a spreadsheet with a FEATHEADER record containing an invalid cbHdrData size element that affects a pointer offset, aka "Excel Featheader Record Memory Corruption Vulnerability."

Severity

CVSS 3.1 · CISA7.8 HIGH

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

SSVC · CISA-ADP

Exploitationactive

Automatableno

Technical impacttotal

Exploitation Context

as of October 13, 2026

All KEV statistics→

CISA added CVE-2009-3129 to the KEV catalog 4,495 days after its CVE record was published.
It is one of 390 Microsoft entries in the CISA KEV catalog, and one of 166 added in 2022.
Its current EPSS score (84.0%) is higher than that of 67% of CISA KEV entries.

Affected Products

Vendor	Product	Affected versions
-	-	n/a

References

10 Links

Vendor advisories

MS09-067

Exploits & PoCs

14706

Third-party advisories

Mailing lists

20091110 ZDI-09-083: Microsoft Excel Shared Feature Header Pointer Offset Memory Corruption Vulnerability

Vulnerability databases

Other references

http://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-09-083

Record Details

Published

2009-11-11

Last updated

2025-10-22

Assigner (CNA)

microsoft

Credited to

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CVE record data © The MITRE Corporation, used under the CVE Terms of Use. Exploited-in-the-wild data from the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (CC0). Exploit prediction scores by FIRST EPSS (first.org/epss). This site is not endorsed or certified by MITRE, NVD, CISA, or FIRST.