CVE-2009-0556: Microsoft Office PowerPoint Code Injection Vulnerability

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.3 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: yes — in CISA KEV since 2026-01-07
EPSS: 67.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2009-04-03 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-94

Description

Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2000 SP3, 2002 SP3, and 2003 SP3, and PowerPoint in Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac, allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a PowerPoint file with an OutlineTextRefAtom containing an an invalid index value that triggers memory corruption, as exploited in the wild in April 2009 by Exploit:Win32/Apptom.gen, aka "Memory Corruption Vulnerability."

Affected products

Microsoft Office Powerpoint: 2004
Microsoft PowerPoint for Android: 2000-sp3, 2002-sp3, 2003-sp3

References

http://blogs.technet.com/mmpc/archive/2009/04/02/new-0-day-exploits-using-powerpoint-files.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2009/04/02/microsoft-security-advisory-969136.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/srd/archive/2009/04/02/investigating-the-new-powerpoint-issue.aspx
http://osvdb.org/53182
http://secunia.com/advisories/34572
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/627331
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/969136.mspx
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/503453/100/0/threaded
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/34351
http://www.securitytracker.com/id?1021967
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA09-132A.html
http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2009/0915

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