Summary
Impact: Remote Code Execution. Microsoft rating: Critical. Not known to be exploited — Exploitation Less Likely. Customer action: Required.
Details
How could an attacker exploit this vulnerability?
An attacker could send a specially crafted email message to a target user. Simply viewing the message in the Outlook Reading Pane could trigger the vulnerability, without the recipient opening the message or clicking anything in it. Successful exploitation could allow the attacker to execute code on the recipient's system. Network access is required; authentication and user interaction are not required.
Security updates
16.0.14334.20974 — https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/microsoft365-apps-security-updates
https — https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/microsoft365-apps-security-updates
Vulnerabilities 1
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Critical 9.8
Microsoft Office Outlook Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Heap-based buffer overflow in Microsoft Office Outlook allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code over a network.
Revision history
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#1
Information published.
References
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CVE-2026-97016 Microsoft Office Outlook Remote Code Execution Vulnerability - HTML
https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2026-97016
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Microsoft Exploitability Index
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/msrc/exploitability-index?rtc=1
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Microsoft Support Lifecycle
https://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle
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Common Vulnerability Scoring System
https://www.first.org/cvss