An exploitable integer overflow vulnerability exists in the xls_preparseWorkSheet function of libxls 1.4 when handling a MULRK record. A specially crafted XLS file can cause a memory corruption resulting in remote code execution. An attacker can send malicious XLS file to trigger this vulnerability.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2017-12109 is rated High Exploit Risk (76.7/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.10%). Core evidence: 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Mandatory action: Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
| EDB-ID | Source | Kind | Published | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | nvd_ref | exploit_tag | Exploit-DB ↗ |
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 | 2025-12-17 | 1.73% | 1.10% | -0.63% |
| 2 | 2025-11-08 | 1.83% | 1.73% | -0.10% |
| 3 | 2025-03-30 | — | 1.83% | — |
Full EPSS history (16 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8.8 | 3.0 | HIGH |
|
2.8 | 5.9 | [email protected] |
| 8.8 | 3.0 | HIGH |
|
2.8 | 5.9 | [email protected] |
| 6.8 | 2.0 | MEDIUM |
|
8.6 | 6.4 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
debian
|
not yet assigned | CVE-2017-12109 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (r-cran-readxl), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2017-12109 |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2017-12109 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (r-cran-readxl), 20 status rows across 20 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 16, DNE 1, ignored 1, needed 1, released 1. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2017-12109 |
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxls_project | libxls | 1.4 | cpe:2.3:a:libxls_project:libxls:1.4:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| URL | Tags |
|---|---|
| https://www.talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2017-0461 | Exploit Third Party Advisory |