How severe is CVE-2023-21715?

CVE-2023-21715 has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.3 (HIGH). EPSS estimates a 12.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days. It is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

CVE-2023-21715: Microsoft Publisher Security Feature Bypass

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities

Microsoft Office Publisher Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability is confirmed as actively exploited and is listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Added to KEV

2023-02-14

Remediation due

2023-03-07

Required action
Apply updates per vendor instructions.

CISA notes
https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/en-US/vulnerability/CVE-2023-21715; https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-21715

Description

Microsoft Publisher Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability

Severity

CVSS 3.1 · CNA7.3 HIGH

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

SSVC · CISA-ADP

Exploitationactive

Automatableno

Technical impacttotal

Exploitation Context

as of October 15, 2026

All KEV statistics→

CISA added CVE-2023-21715 to the KEV catalog on the day its CVE record was published. The median for entries added in 2023 is 12 days.
It is one of 391 Microsoft entries in the CISA KEV catalog, and one of 27 added in 2023.
Its current EPSS score (12.0%) is higher than that of 28% of CISA KEV entries.

Affected Products

Vendor	Product	Affected versions
Microsoft	Microsoft Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise	16.0.1 to <https://aka.ms/OfficeSecurityReleases

References

1 Links

Vendor advisories

Microsoft Publisher Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability

Record Details

Published

2023-02-14

Last updated

2026-08-19

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.