CVE-2025-24081: 
vulnerability analysis and mitigation

CVE-2025-24081 is a use-after-free vulnerability discovered in Microsoft Office Excel. The vulnerability was disclosed on March 11, 2025, and affects Microsoft Excel applications. This security flaw allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code locally on affected systems (NVD, CVE).

The vulnerability is classified as a use-after-free (CWE-416) issue in Microsoft Office Excel. Microsoft has assigned it a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.8 (HIGH) with the following vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H. This indicates that the vulnerability requires local access and user interaction, but no privileges, and can result in high impacts to confidentiality, integrity, and availability (NVD).

If successfully exploited, this vulnerability allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code locally on the affected system, potentially leading to complete compromise of the affected Excel application and associated data (NVD).

Microsoft has released security updates to address this vulnerability. Users can obtain the update through multiple channels: Microsoft Update (automatic updates), Microsoft Update Catalog (standalone package), or Microsoft Download Center. The security update KB5002696 for Excel 2016 and KB5002690 for Office Online Server are available to address this issue (Microsoft Support).