CVE-2011-0979

Microsoft Excel 2002 SP3, 2003 SP3, 2007 SP2, and 2010; Office 2004, 2008, and 2011 for Mac; Open XML File Format Converter for Mac; and Excel Viewer SP2 do not properly handle errors during the parsing of Office Art records in Excel spreadsheets, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a malformed object record, related to a "stray reference," aka "Excel Linked List Corruption Vulnerability."

Published: 2011-02-10 Last update: 2026-04-29 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2011-0979 is rated High Risk (74.1/100): CVSS Critical severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 66.75%, 98th percentile). Core evidence: EPSS ranks this CVE among the most likely to be exploited in the near term. EPSS rose +2.45% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Mandatory action: High exploitation likelihood—assess exposure and prioritize remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2011-0979

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2025-08-12 64.30% 66.75% +2.45%
2 2025-03-30 72.71% 64.30% -8.41%
3 2025-03-29 72.71%

Full EPSS history (15 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2011-0979

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
9.3 2.0 HIGH
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:C)
Complete confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:C)
Complete integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:C)
Complete availability impact.
8.6 10.0 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2011-0979

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2011-0979

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
microsoft excel cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:excel:-:-:x64:*:*:*:*:*
microsoft excel 2002 cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:excel:2002:sp3:*:*:*:*:*:*
microsoft excel 2003 cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:excel:2003:sp3:*:*:*:*:*:*
microsoft excel 2007 cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:excel:2007:sp2:*:*:*:*:*:*
microsoft excel 2010 cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:excel:2010:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
microsoft excel_viewer cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:excel_viewer:-:sp2:*:*:*:*:*:*
microsoft office 2004 cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:office:2004:*:mac:*:*:*:*:*
microsoft office 2008 cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:office:2008:*:mac:*:*:*:*:*
microsoft office 2011 cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:office:2011:*:mac:*:*:*:*:*
microsoft office_compatibility_pack 2007 cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:office_compatibility_pack:2007:sp2:*:*:*:*:*:*
microsoft open_xml_file_format_converter cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:open_xml_file_format_converter:*:*:mac:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2011-0979

cvelogic Threat Intelligence