Threats / Microsoft / CVE-2012-2539
CVE-2012-2539
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-06-22
Microsoft Word vulnerability
Microsoft Word processes crafted RTF data unsafely, allowing remote code execution or denial-of-service attacks.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
CVE-2012-2539 is a resource exhaustion vulnerability in Word's RTF handling that enables remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or crash the application through malicious document delivery.
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
3 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-03-28).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.53159 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: Microsoft, Word. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-399 Resource Management Errors — weakness family: Resource / availability.CWE assignment from the public NVD record; the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I craft a malicious RTF document exploiting improper resource handling in Word's parser.
Business
Attackers gain a delivery vector for code execution against users opening untrusted documents.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I send the weaponized RTF file via email or host it on a compromised website.
Business
End-user systems become vulnerable when documents are opened without protective controls.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I trigger remote code execution when the target opens the document in Word.
Business
Attackers establish persistence, steal data, or deploy malware across affected endpoints.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05