Microsoft Office
CVE-2018-8244 — Microsoft Outlook Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
Executive Summary
An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when Microsoft Outlook does not validate attachment headers properly. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could send an email with hidden attachments that would be opened or executed once a victim clicks a link within the email. Note that this does not bypass attachment filters, so blocked attachments will still be excluded. To exploit the vulnerability, the attacker could send a specially crafted email to a victim. The victim would then be required to click on a link within the email to open or execute a malicious attachment. This update addresses the vulnerability by changing the way that Outlook parses attachment headers.
Overview
Important
MS Severity
Not Exploited
MS Exploit Status
Less Likely
MS Exploit Likelihood
EPSS Score
0.04852
probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
0.91246 percentile - updated 2026-08-14
View on FIRST.org
Affected Products
9 affected products
| Product | KB Article | Severity | Impact | Restart Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Office 2016 Click-to-Run (C2R) for 32-bit editions | Click to Run (Security Update) |
Important | Elevation of Privilege | No |
| Microsoft Office 2016 Click-to-Run (C2R) for 64-bit editions | Click to Run (Security Update) |
Important | Elevation of Privilege | No |
| Microsoft Outlook 2010 Service Pack 2 (32-bit editions) | 4022205 (Security Update) |
Important | Elevation of Privilege | Maybe |
| Microsoft Outlook 2010 Service Pack 2 (64-bit editions) | 4022205 (Security Update) |
Important | Elevation of Privilege | Maybe |
| Microsoft Outlook 2013 RT Service Pack 1 | 4022169 (Security Update) |
Important | Elevation of Privilege | Maybe |
| Microsoft Outlook 2013 Service Pack 1 (32-bit editions) | 4022169 (Security Update) |
Important | Elevation of Privilege | Maybe |
| Microsoft Outlook 2013 Service Pack 1 (64-bit editions) | 4022169 (Security Update) |
Important | Elevation of Privilege | Maybe |
| Microsoft Outlook 2016 (32-bit edition) | 4022160 (Security Update) |
Important | Elevation of Privilege | Maybe |
| Microsoft Outlook 2016 (64-bit edition) | 4022160 (Security Update) |
Important | Elevation of Privilege | Maybe |
Patches
4 patches
| Article | Type | Restart |
|---|---|---|
Click to Run |
Security Update | No |
4022205 |
Security Update | Maybe |
4022169 |
Security Update | Maybe |
4022160 |
Security Update | Maybe |
Exploits & PoC
No public exploit or PoC has been linked for this CVE yet. When available, references are sourced from public repositories and may be unverified or non-functional — review carefully before use.
Detection Rules
No public Sigma or Nuclei detection rule has been mapped to this CVE yet. Coverage is concentrated on exploited / high-profile vulnerabilities; check SigmaHQ for updates.
Acknowledgments
Jonathan Birch of Microsoft Corporation
References
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