Vulnerability Database

346,505

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2005-4131 — microsoft / excel

Unspecified vulnerability in Microsoft Excel 2000, 2002, and 2003, in Microsoft Office 2000 SP3 and other packages, allows user-assisted attackers to execute arbitrary code via an Excel file with a malformed range, which could lead to memory corruption involving an argument to the msvcrt.memmove function, aka "Brand new Microsoft Excel Vulnerability," as originally placed for sale on eBay as item number 7203336538.

  • Published: Dec 9, 2005
  • Updated: Nov 9, 2025
  • CVE: CVE-2005-4131
  • Severity: Medium
  • Exploit:

CVSS v2:

  • Severity: Medium
  • Score: 6.8
  • AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

No CWE or OWASP classifications available.

Software From Fixed in
microsoft / excel 2002-sp1 2002-sp1.x
microsoft / excel 2003-sp1 2003-sp1.x
microsoft / excel 2000 2000.x
microsoft / excel 95 95.x
microsoft / excel 97-sr1 97-sr1.x
microsoft / excel 97-sr2 97-sr2.x
microsoft / excel 2000-sp3 2000-sp3.x
microsoft / excel 2002 2002.x
microsoft / excel 2002-sp3 2002-sp3.x
microsoft / excel 2003 2003.x
microsoft / excel 2000-sr1 2000-sr1.x
microsoft / excel 97 97.x
microsoft / excel 2002-sp2 2002-sp2.x
microsoft / excel 2000-sp2 2000-sp2.x

Frequently Asked Questions

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.