CVE-2023-33140
Published: 14 June 2023
Summary
CVE-2023-33140 is a medium-severity Authentication Bypass by Spoofing (CWE-290) vulnerability in Microsoft Onenote. Its CVSS base score is 6.5 (Medium).
Operationally, ranked in the top 9.5% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
Deeper analysis
Microsoft OneNote is affected by a spoofing vulnerability identified as CVE-2023-33140. The flaw received a CVSS v3.1 score of 6.5 and is linked to CWE-290, reflecting weaknesses that allow improper authentication validation.
An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit the issue over the network by supplying specially crafted content that requires user interaction, enabling the spoofing of trusted elements and resulting in disclosure of high-value confidential information without affecting integrity or availability.
Microsoft's security update guide for CVE-2023-33140 outlines the availability of patches and recommended mitigations for supported OneNote builds.
A publicly posted proof-of-concept on GitHub demonstrates the attack against OneNote version 2305 build 16.0.16501.20074, and the associated EPSS score reached a recorded peak of 0.0762.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-37326
Vulnerability details
Microsoft OneNote Spoofing Vulnerability
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Reveals spoofed logon attempts through unexpected previous logon timestamps upon legitimate login.
Training specifically addresses recognizing spoofed communications and phishing that enable authentication bypass.
Requiring verifiable identity evidence at appropriate assurance levels makes it substantially harder for attackers to successfully spoof or impersonate users to obtain accounts.
Unique device authentication makes successful spoofing of device identity substantially more difficult to achieve.
Unique identification of non-organizational users reduces the feasibility of authentication bypass by spoofing.
Unique identification and authentication of services before communications makes spoofing of service identities substantially harder.
Isolated trusted path ensures the user interacts only with genuine system components, preventing spoofing of authentication interfaces or prompts.
Directly counters DNS response spoofing by requiring cryptographic origin authentication artifacts from the authoritative source.