CVE-2021-43255 : What You Need to Know

Microsoft Office Trust Center Spoofing Vulnerability was published on December 15, 2021, with a CVSS base score of 5.5.

Understanding CVE-2021-43255

A medium-severity vulnerability impacting various Microsoft Office versions could allow spoofing attacks.

What is CVE-2021-43255?

The CVE-2021-43255 vulnerability refers to a spoofing issue in the Microsoft Office Trust Center.

The Impact of CVE-2021-43255

This vulnerability could allow an attacker to spoof content or phishing pages, potentially leading to social engineering attacks.

Technical Details of CVE-2021-43255

This section outlines the technical aspects of the CVE-2021-43255 vulnerability.

Vulnerability Description

Vulnerability Type: Spoofing
CVSS Base Score: 5.5 (Medium)
Vector String: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Affected Systems and Versions

The following Microsoft Office products are affected:

Microsoft Office LTSC 2021 (Version 16.0.1)
Microsoft Office 2019 (Version 19.0.0)
Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise (Version 16.0.1)
Microsoft Office 2016 (Version 16.0.0)
Microsoft Office 2013 Service Pack 1 (Version 15.0.0)

Exploitation Mechanism

The vulnerability could be exploited by an attacker to deceive users into interacting with malicious content, potentially leading to further exploitation.

Mitigation and Prevention

Steps to mitigate the CVE-2021-43255 vulnerability:

Immediate Steps to Take

Implement security patches from Microsoft.
Educate users on identifying and avoiding suspicious emails.
Use email validation technologies to detect phishing attempts.

Long-Term Security Practices

Regularly update Microsoft Office and other software.
Train employees on security best practices to prevent social engineering attacks.

Patching and Updates

Apply patches provided by Microsoft to address the Trust Center spoofing vulnerability.