How severe is CVE-2012-2539?

CVE-2012-2539 has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.8 (HIGH). EPSS estimates a 53.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days. It is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

CVE-2012-2539: Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities

Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability is confirmed as actively exploited and is listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Added to KEV

2022-03-28

Remediation due

2022-04-18

Required action
Apply updates per vendor instructions.

CISA notes
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2012-2539

Description

Microsoft Word 2003 SP3, 2007 SP2 and SP3, and 2010 SP1; Word Viewer; Office Compatibility Pack SP2 and SP3; and Office Web Apps 2010 SP1 allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (memory corruption) via crafted RTF data, aka "Word RTF 'listoverridecount' Remote Code Execution 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 15, 2026

All KEV statistics→

CISA added CVE-2012-2539 to the KEV catalog 3,393 days after its CVE record was published.
It is one of 391 Microsoft entries in the CISA KEV catalog, and one of 166 added in 2022.
Its current EPSS score (53.0%) is higher than that of 51% of CISA KEV entries.

Affected Products

Vendor	Product	Affected versions
-	-	n/a

References

3 Links

Vendor advisories

MS12-079

Third-party advisories

TA12-346A

Vulnerability databases

oval:org.mitre.oval:def:16073

Record Details

Published

2012-12-12

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.