Microsoft Windows Code Injection Vulnerability (CVE-2014-6352)
Published In CISA KEV since Sources: CVE.org
What is affected, what to do
Microsoft Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 SP2 and R2 SP1, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 Gold and R2, and Windows RT Gold and 8.1 allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted OLE object, as exploited in the wild in October 2014 with a crafted PowerPoint document.
The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. The available sources name no fixed version. Check the vendor guidance in the references below. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.
- Affected
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008
eq r2..r2 - Microsoft Windows Server 2012
eq r2..r2
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008
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Metrics
7.8
Priority
XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.
Source: NVD, CVSS v3
7.8
CVSS v3
Severity High on the scale from 0 to 10.
Source: CVE.org
77.5 %
EPSS score
High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.
Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 99.56
Show all metrics
- Severity
- Critical
Priority (0–325)
The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?
Read in glossary- 218.30 Methodology
Exploit maturity
An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.
Read in glossary- actively exploited
XIEM Effective CVSS
XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.
Read in glossary- 7.8 Methodology
CVSS v3
CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.
Read in glossary- 7.8
EPSS score
The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.
Read in glossary- 77.5 %
- High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.
EPSS percentile
The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.
Read in glossary- 99.56
- Critical — this CVE ranks in the top fifth of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 80%).
KEV status
The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.
Read in glossary- Actively exploited
- Published
In CISA KEV since
The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.
Read in glossary- CISA assessment (SSVC)
- Exploitation: active · not automatable · Technical impact: total
- Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 10 February 2025
Response and mitigation
Why act now?
Prioritisation rationale
Exploitation needs nothing more than a user opening a crafted Office document, historically PowerPoint, and requires no prior authentication. That makes it a natural fit for targeted spear-phishing against government, energy and industrial organisations, and exploitation likelihood remains very high. CISA does not flag ransomware use, but successful exploitation still yields full compromise of confidentiality, integrity and availability on the endpoint. For estates running current, patched Windows, the residual risk is low. Rate it high to critical wherever end-of-life Windows survives in OT, lab or specialist-application environments that can still receive Office files, and record those systems in your NIS2 risk register as legacy assets with documented compensating controls.
Runbook step 1
Immediate response (0-24 h)
- Inventory legacy Windows hosts: Find every machine running Vista SP2, 7 SP1, 8, 8.1, RT/RT 8.1, Server 2008 SP2/R2 SP1 or Server 2012/2012 R2. Use your CMDB, EDR inventory or
Get-ADComputer -Filter * -Properties OperatingSystem. All of these platforms are end-of-life, which puts them at elevated exposure. - Apply the security update: A patch is available from the vendor — look up the exact update in the Microsoft advisory (Security Update Guide, Windows OLE). Confirm deployment through WSUS/SCCM compliance reports. Treat any host without evidence of the update as vulnerable.
- Isolate hosts that cannot be patched: Move non-updatable systems, such as OT HMIs, lab PCs or line-of-business servers, into a dedicated VLAN. Remove mail clients and internet access, and block externally sourced Office documents.
- Tighten the mail gateway now: Quarantine inbound Office files containing embedded OLE/Packager objects (
ppt/embeddings/oleObject*.bin,word/embeddings/). Pay particular attention to.ppsx,.pps,.pptxand.ppt. - Run a retro-hunt: Search mail and proxy logs from the last 30 days for delivered PowerPoint attachments with embedded objects. Use EDR to check recipient endpoints for child processes of
POWERPNT.EXE.
- Inventory legacy Windows hosts: Find every machine running Vista SP2, 7 SP1, 8, 8.1, RT/RT 8.1, Server 2008 SP2/R2 SP1 or Server 2012/2012 R2. Use your CMDB, EDR inventory or
Runbook step 2
Mitigation layers
- Configuration (Office): Enforce Protected View by GPO for internet-sourced files and Outlook attachments. Use File Block settings to block legacy PowerPoint binary formats. Disable activation of OLE/Packager objects via policy where your Office build supports it.
- Endpoint hardening: Keep UAC enabled, with prompts on the secure desktop. Known in-the-wild exploitation triggered a UAC prompt, so running users as standard accounts sharply reduces impact. Where Defender is available, enable the ASR rule "Block all Office applications from creating child processes".
- Application control: Use AppLocker or SRP to deny execution of
.exe,.inf,.scrand.ps1from%TEMP%,%APPDATA%and%LOCALAPPDATA%. - Network segmentation: Block outbound SMB (TCP 445/139) and WebDAV to the internet at the perimeter, which defeats payload retrieval via UNC paths. Disable the
WebClientservice on endpoints that don't need it. - IAM / least privilege: Remove local admin rights and deploy LAPS. Perform admin work only from separate accounts that have no mailbox.
Runbook step 3
Detection rules
- Sysmon EID 1 / Security 4688 — process ancestry: Look for Office processes spawning suspicious children. Sigma shape:
ParentImage|endswith: '\POWERPNT.EXE' AND Image|endswith: ['\cmd.exe','\powershell.exe','\rundll32.exe','\InfDefaultInstall.exe','\wscript.exe'], or any image launched from\AppData\Local\Temp\. - Sysmon EID 11 — file creation: Look for PowerPoint dropping executables or INF files into temp. KQL:
DeviceFileEvents | where InitiatingProcessFileName =~ "powerpnt.exe" and FileName matches regex @"\.(exe|inf|dll|scr)$". - Sysmon EID 7 — image load: Look for
packager.dllloading intoPOWERPNT.EXE, followed immediately by a process start or outbound connection. Correlate this against your list of unpatched hosts. - Network (Zeek/Suricata): Look for outbound SMB to non-RFC1918 destinations (
smb_files.log), or WebDAV requests with User-AgentMicrosoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir, shortly after a document is opened. - Mail/sandbox telemetry: Flag attachments whose OOXML package contains
oleObject*.binwith the Packager CLSID{0003000C-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}. A YARA rule on that CLSID inside embeddings is cheap and effective.
- Sysmon EID 1 / Security 4688 — process ancestry: Look for Office processes spawning suspicious children. Sigma shape:
Detection rules
No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.
Classification under NIS2 and CRA
Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.
NIS2
NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.
Read in glossary- Actively exploited: treat the vulnerability as a priority in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2. If it is exploited in your environment, check the reporting obligation under Art. 23 (early warning within 24 hours).
CRA
The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.
Read in glossary- Since 11.09.2026, manufacturers of affected products with digital elements must report actively exploited vulnerabilities under Art. 14 CRA, with an early warning within 24 hours via ENISA's single reporting platform.
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.
Read in glossary- Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.
Description
Microsoft Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 SP2 and R2 SP1, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 Gold and R2, and Windows RT Gold and 8.1 allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted OLE object, as exploited in the wild in October 2014 with a crafted PowerPoint document.
Source: NVD (NIST), cvelistv5, CISA KEV Catalog, CVE.org (MITRE)
Vendors and products
- Microsoft Microsoft Windows 7
- Microsoft Microsoft Windows 8 Professional Edition
- Microsoft Microsoft Windows 8.1
- Microsoft Microsoft Windows RT Gold
- Microsoft Microsoft Windows RT 8.1
- Microsoft Microsoft Windows Server 2008
- Microsoft Microsoft Windows Server 2012
- Microsoft Microsoft Windows Vista Gold on X64
Affected operating systems
| Windows | microsoft | windows_7 | — |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_8 | — |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_8.1 | — |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_rt | — |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_rt_8.1 | — |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_server_2008 | r2 |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_server_2008 | — |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_server_2012 | r2 |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_server_2012 | — |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_vista | — |
Public exploit references
Publicly reported proof-of-concepts, exploit modules and detection templates for this vulnerability. NEOSEC links to the original sources only and does not provide any exploit code.
| CISA KEV Catalog | CISA Known Exploited Vulnerability (opens in a new tab)cisa.gov | actively exploited |
References & sources
- exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.comms-win-ole-cve20146352-code-exec(97714)Vulnerability database, x_refsource_XF, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
- twitter.comohjeongwook/statuses/524795124270653440x_refsource_MISC, Third-party advisory
- secunia.com61803Third-party advisory, x_refsource_SECUNIA, Broken link
- docs.microsoft.comMS14-064Vendor advisory, x_refsource_MS, Patch, Vendor advisory
- securitytracker.com1031097Vulnerability database, x_refsource_SECTRACK, Broken link, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
- blogs.technet.comb/srd/archive/2014/11/11/assessing-risk-for-the-november-2014-s…x_refsource_CONFIRM, Broken link, Patch, Vendor advisory
- securityfocus.com70690Vulnerability database, x_refsource_BID, Broken link, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
- technet.microsoft.comlibrary/security/3010060x_refsource_CONFIRM, Patch, Vendor advisory
- cisa.govknown-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2014-6352government-resource, US government resource
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<a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2014-6352"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2014-6352.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2014-6352 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>