CVE-2026-33115
Published: 14 April 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-33115 is a high-severity Use After Free (CWE-416) vulnerability. Its CVSS base score is 8.4 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Client Execution (T1203); ranked at the 23.2th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-16 (Memory Protection) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2026-33115 is a use-after-free vulnerability (CWE-416) affecting Microsoft Office Word. Published on 2026-04-14T18:17:33.707, it carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.4 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H). The flaw enables an unauthorized attacker to execute code locally.
A local attacker requires no privileges (PR:N) and can exploit the vulnerability with low attack complexity (AC:L) and no user interaction (UI:N). Successful exploitation grants high-impact arbitrary code execution, affecting confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:H/I:H/A:H) within the local scope (S:U/AV:L).
Microsoft's update guide provides details on mitigation and patches at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2026-33115.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-22633
Vulnerability details
Use after free in Microsoft Office Word allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code locally.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Use-after-free in Microsoft Office Word directly enables arbitrary local code execution in a client application (T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution).
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Timely flaw remediation through vendor patches directly eliminates the use-after-free vulnerability in Microsoft Office Word, preventing local code execution.
Memory protection mechanisms such as ASLR, DEP, and control flow guard directly mitigate use-after-free exploits by preventing reliable arbitrary code execution.
Secure configuration settings for Microsoft Office Word, including Protected View and macro disabling, limit exposure to malicious documents that trigger the use-after-free flaw.