CVE-2021-40444

CRITICALNVD 7.89.0
EchelonGraph scoreHIGH confidence

“▲” beside the score: it is higher than NVD's CVSS score.

Score elevated to 9.0 because this CVE is listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03), indicating real-world exploitation has been confirmed by US federal agencies. NVD baseline CVSS 7.8 retained for reference. The 9.0 is the floor for confirmed exploitation, not an impact rating: this CVE's impact severity (EG Severity) is CVSS 7.8 HIGH under GitHub Security Advisory CVSS. Confidence: HIGH.

Triggered by: CISA KEV (actively exploited)
Sources: CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, EPSS, GitHub Security Advisory, NVD CVSS v3
Trending — 3 sources updated this weekExploited in the wild
9.0EG
EchelonGraph verdictPatch nowTreat as an emergency — this is being exploited.
  • Actively exploited in the wild (CISA-KEV) — the reason this is sooner than the SSVC decision on this page at low or medium mission impact
CISA-KEV: ExploitedEPSS PROB: 98%CVSS: 7.8Exploit: Metasploit · other public PoCExposed services: Not assessed

A fix is available — apply it.

Microsoft is investigating reports of a remote code execution vulnerability in MSHTML that affects Microsoft Windows. Microsoft is aware of targeted attacks that attempt to exploit this vulnerability by using specially-crafted Microsoft Office documents. An attacker could craft a malicious ActiveX control to be used by a Microsoft Office document that hosts the browser rendering engine. The attacker would then have to convince the user to open the malicious document. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. Microsoft Defender Antivirus and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint both provide detection and protections for the known vulnerability. Customers should keep antimalware products up to date. Customers who utilize automatic updates do not need to take additional action. Enterprise customers who manage updates should select the detection build 1.349.22.0 or newer and deploy it across their environments. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint alerts will be displayed as: “Suspicious Cpl File Execution”. Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to help protect our customers. This may include providing a security update through our monthly release process or providing an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs. Please see the Mitigations and Workaround sections for important information about steps you can take to protect your system from this vulnerability. UPDATE September 14, 2021: Microsoft has released security updates to address this vulnerability. Please see the Security Updates table for the applicable update for your system. We recommend that you install these updates immediately. Please see the FAQ for important information about which updates are applicable to your system.

CVSS v3
7.8
EG Score
9.0CRITICALhigh confidence
EG Risk
75
EG Risk 75/100

EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score. It fuses impact severity (EG Severity, the CVSS base score, never the KEV-floored or EPSS-lifted EG Score) with real-world exploitation and automatability, under weights EchelonGraph set by hand, so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner.

How it’s computed (value × EchelonGraph’s weight)
Severity78% × 45%
Impact severity (EG Severity): CVSS 7.8 of 10. Never the KEV-floored or EPSS-lifted EG Score.
Exploitation100% × 40%
Fixed at 100% for a CISA KEV listing: EchelonGraph's rule.
Automatability0% × 15%
CISA's SSVC Automatable value: no (Vulnrichment).
SSVC (CISA's decision table, applied by EchelonGraph): Track at low, Attend at medium and Act at high mission impact.
Exploitation active (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable no (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). All three are CISA's SSVC values (Vulnrichment). EchelonGraph applied CISA's decision table to them; CISA publishes SSVC inputs and the table, not a decision for each CVE.
Action: A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines at low, sooner than that at medium and as soon as possible at high mission impact.
EPSS PROB
98%
EPSS %ILE
99th
KEV
⚠ Exploited

What the EG score is made of (scorer v4.0: the three questions the 0–10 score mixes, published apart · methodology)

The EG score (9.0): severity, escalated by confirmed exploitation. This CVE's 9.0 is the CISA KEV floor for confirmed exploitation, not an impact rating: its impact severity (EG Severity) is CVSS 7.8 HIGH.

EG Severity
7.8 HIGHCVSS-B, impact only: no KEV listing, EPSS or EG-KEV tier raises it.GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
EG Likelihood
98% within 30 daysSource: FIRST EPSS (model v2026.06.15, score date 2026-10-22). FIRST's exploitation probability, not an EchelonGraph model.
Confirmed exploitation
CISA KEV and EG-KEV Tier 1 (exploited in the wild)Reported apart from the likelihood: an observed fact, not a probability.
EG Priority
SSVC Attend at medium mission impactTrack at low, Attend at medium and Act at high mission impact.CISA BOD 26-04: 3 days & forensic triage if the affected system is publicly exposed; 14 days if it is not.Each input and its source: the SSVC and BOD 26-04 blocks below.

SSVC (CISA's decision table, applied by EchelonGraph)Track at low, Attend at medium and Act at high mission impact.

A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines at low, sooner than that at medium and as soon as possible at high mission impact.

Exploitation active (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable no (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). All three are CISA's SSVC values (Vulnrichment). EchelonGraph applied CISA's decision table to them; CISA publishes SSVC inputs and the table, not a decision for each CVE. Mission impact is CISA's Mission & Well-being decision point, and only you can judge it. CISA's table makes it high when Mission Prevalence is Essential — the vulnerable component "directly provides capabilities that constitute at least one MEF for at least one entity" (MEF: mission essential function) — or when Public Well-Being Impact is Irreversible: "multiple fatalities are likely", the cyber-physical system "is likely lost or destroyed", "extreme or serious externalities" are imposed on other parties, or social systems such as elections or the financial grid "are destabilized and potentially collapse". CISA's decision table

BOD 26-04 (CISA's remediation timeline, Table 1)3 days & forensic triage if the affected system is publicly exposed; 14 days if it is not.

In CISA KEV yes (CISA's KEV catalog) · Automatable no (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). Whether your system is publicly exposed is yours to answer. BOD 26-04 binds US Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies; for anyone else it is CISA's published timeline, a reference rather than an obligation. The directive · how EchelonGraph applies it

CISA required action“Apply updates per vendor instructions.”

Quoted verbatim from CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. CISA directs it at US federal civilian executive branch agencies under Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 26-04, which replaced BOD 22-01 on 10 June 2026; it is not EchelonGraph's advice. CISA's notes: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-40444

Published

September 15, 2021

Last Modified

August 10, 2026

Advisory Details (6)

Auto-updated Oct 19, 2026
⚠️ Actively exploited (CISA KEV, CISA Vulnrichment). Patch available. Sources: microsoft, cisa.
CISA🔴 Active Exploitation

Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog | CISA

Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog | CISA. Listed in CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2021-40444
Microsoft

Security Update Guide - Microsoft Security Response Center

https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2021-40444
Microsoft

Security Update Guide - Microsoft Security Response Center

https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2021-40444

Vendor Advisories for CVE-2021-40444(2)

These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.

Weakness Classification(1)

MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 18× in last 7d / 283× in last 30d)

Each row is a time one of our pipelines fetched, updated or re-scored this CVE. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. An arrow marks a change the record states ("CVSS v3 → 9.1"); EPSS and GHSA rows show the values recorded at that time, not what changed (EPSS values are rounded; hover one for the exact figures). Most recent first.

Showing the most recent 100 of 1,804 refreshes on record for this CVE.

A repeat, a row identical to one the same pipeline wrote less than 10 seconds earlier, is not a separate refresh and is not counted. None are among the latest 100 rows. The 1,704 oldest rows on record are not shown and were not checked, so the counts can still include repeats.

  1. 2026-10-23 11:29 UTCEG score recompute
  2. 2026-10-23 11:28 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  3. 2026-10-22 13:01 UTCEG score recompute
  4. 2026-10-22 13:01 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  5. 2026-10-21 14:35 UTCEG score recompute
  6. 2026-10-21 14:35 UTCVendor advisory
  7. 2026-10-21 14:35 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  8. 2026-10-20 16:10 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  9. 2026-10-19 17:45 UTCEG score recompute
  10. 2026-10-19 17:45 UTCVendor advisory
  11. 2026-10-19 17:45 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  12. 2026-10-18 19:20 UTCEG score recompute
  13. 2026-10-18 19:20 UTCVendor advisory
  14. 2026-10-18 19:20 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  15. 2026-10-18 08:54 UTCEG score recompute
  16. 2026-10-17 20:54 UTCEG score recompute
  17. 2026-10-17 20:54 UTCVendor advisory
  18. 2026-10-17 20:53 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  19. 2026-10-16 22:26 UTCEG score recompute
  20. 2026-10-16 22:26 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  21. 2026-10-16 16:34 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 98% · 99th percentile
  22. 2026-10-16 00:01 UTCEG score recompute
  23. 2026-10-16 00:01 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  24. 2026-10-15 01:35 UTCEG score recompute
  25. 2026-10-15 01:34 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
Show 75 more
  1. 2026-10-14 16:29 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS 98% · 99th percentile
  2. 2026-10-14 03:07 UTCEG score recompute
  3. 2026-10-14 03:06 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  4. 2026-10-13 04:40 UTCVendor advisory
  5. 2026-10-13 04:40 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  6. 2026-10-12 19:10 UTCEG score recompute
  7. 2026-10-12 06:16 UTCVendor advisory
  8. 2026-10-12 06:15 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  9. 2026-10-12 02:35 UTCVendor advisory
  10. 2026-10-12 02:35 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  11. 2026-10-11 22:56 UTCVendor advisory
  12. 2026-10-11 22:56 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  13. 2026-10-11 19:17 UTCEG score recompute
  14. 2026-10-11 19:17 UTCVendor advisory
  15. 2026-10-11 19:17 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  16. 2026-10-11 15:40 UTCEG score recompute
  17. 2026-10-11 15:40 UTCVendor advisory
  18. 2026-10-11 15:40 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  19. 2026-10-11 12:03 UTCEG score recompute
  20. 2026-10-11 12:03 UTCVendor advisory
  21. 2026-10-11 12:03 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  22. 2026-10-11 08:25 UTCVendor advisory
  23. 2026-10-11 08:24 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  24. 2026-10-11 04:44 UTCVendor advisory
  25. 2026-10-11 04:44 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  26. 2026-10-11 01:05 UTCVendor advisory
  27. 2026-10-11 01:04 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  28. 2026-10-10 21:24 UTCVendor advisory
  29. 2026-10-10 21:23 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  30. 2026-10-10 17:44 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  31. 2026-10-10 14:07 UTCVendor advisory
  32. 2026-10-10 14:07 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  33. 2026-10-10 10:29 UTCVendor advisory
  34. 2026-10-10 10:29 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  35. 2026-10-10 06:52 UTCVendor advisory
  36. 2026-10-10 06:52 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  37. 2026-10-10 03:15 UTCVendor advisory
  38. 2026-10-10 03:15 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  39. 2026-10-09 23:38 UTCVendor advisory
  40. 2026-10-09 23:38 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  41. 2026-10-09 20:01 UTCVendor advisory
  42. 2026-10-09 20:01 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  43. 2026-10-09 16:24 UTCVendor advisory
  44. 2026-10-09 16:23 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  45. 2026-10-09 12:46 UTCVendor advisory
  46. 2026-10-09 12:46 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  47. 2026-10-09 09:09 UTCVendor advisory
  48. 2026-10-09 09:08 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  49. 2026-10-09 05:31 UTCVendor advisory
  50. 2026-10-09 05:31 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  51. 2026-10-09 01:53 UTCVendor advisory
  52. 2026-10-09 01:53 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  53. 2026-10-08 22:16 UTCVendor advisory
  54. 2026-10-08 22:16 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  55. 2026-10-08 18:39 UTCVendor advisory
  56. 2026-10-08 18:38 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  57. 2026-10-08 15:01 UTCVendor advisory
  58. 2026-10-08 15:01 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  59. 2026-10-08 11:24 UTCVendor advisory
  60. 2026-10-08 11:24 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  61. 2026-10-08 07:46 UTCVendor advisory
  62. 2026-10-08 07:46 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  63. 2026-10-08 04:08 UTCVendor advisory
  64. 2026-10-08 04:08 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  65. 2026-10-08 00:31 UTCVendor advisory
  66. 2026-10-08 00:31 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  67. 2026-10-07 20:54 UTCVendor advisory
  68. 2026-10-07 20:53 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  69. 2026-10-07 17:16 UTCVendor advisory
  70. 2026-10-07 17:15 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  71. 2026-10-07 13:37 UTCVendor advisory
  72. 2026-10-07 13:37 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  73. 2026-10-07 10:00 UTCVendor advisory
  74. 2026-10-07 10:00 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-2h32-fhf6-xhh5 · GitHub severity HIGH · GitHub CVSS 7.8
  75. 2026-10-07 06:23 UTCVendor advisory

Publicly available exploits

(11 references, 10 shown)

Public exploit code is referenced for this CVE (1 Metasploit module, 10 GitHub PoCs). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly.

  • Metasploitexploit/windows/fileformat/word_mshtml_rce✓ verified
    Published Dec 8, 2021

    Microsoft Office Word Malicious MSHTML RCE

    Open source ↗
  • GitHub PoC34zY/Microsoft-Office-Word-MSHTML-Remote-Code-Execution-Exploit
    Published Dec 19, 2021

    CVE-2021-40444

    Open source ↗
  • GitHub PoCH0j3n/CVE-2021-40444
    Published Oct 3, 2021
    Open source ↗
  • GitHub PoCEdubr2020/CVE-2021-40444--CABless
    Published Sep 19, 2021

    Modified code so that we don´t need to rely on CAB archives

    Open source ↗
  • GitHub PoCklezVirus/CVE-2021-40444
    Published Sep 15, 2021

    CVE-2021-40444 - Fully Weaponized Microsoft Office Word RCE Exploit

    Open source ↗
  • GitHub PoCk8gege/CVE-2021-40444
    Published Sep 14, 2021
    Open source ↗
  • GitHub PoCaslitsecurity/CVE-2021-40444_builders
    Published Sep 12, 2021

    This repo contain builders of cab file, html file, and docx file for CVE-2021-40444 exploit

    Open source ↗
  • GitHub PoCmansk1es/Caboom
    Published Sep 11, 2021

    A malicious .cab creation tool for CVE-2021-40444

    Open source ↗
  • GitHub PoClockedbyte/CVE-2021-40444
    Published Sep 10, 2021

    CVE-2021-40444 PoC

    Open source ↗
  • GitHub PoCrfcxv/CVE-2021-40444-POC
    Published Sep 9, 2021
    Open source ↗

Frequently asked(6)

What is CVE-2021-40444?
CVE-2021-40444 is a critical-severity vulnerability; its CVE record was published on September 15, 2021. Microsoft is investigating reports of a remote code execution vulnerability in MSHTML that affects Microsoft Windows. Microsoft is aware of targeted attacks that attempt to exploit this vulnerability by using specially-crafted Microsoft Office documents. An attacker could craft a malicious ActiveX…
When was CVE-2021-40444 made public?
CVE-2021-40444 was made public on September 7, 2021: that is the date its CVE record's CNA, Microsoft Corporation, gives for when the vulnerability was made public. The CVE record itself was published on September 15, 2021. EchelonGraph's copy of the record carries a last-modified date of August 10, 2026; the record at its source may have been updated since.
Is CVE-2021-40444 actively exploited?
Yes. CISA added CVE-2021-40444 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on November 3, 2021, affecting Microsoft MSHTML. KEV listing indicates confirmed exploitation in the wild; this CVE warrants immediate attention. A fix is available. Apply it.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2021-40444?
CVE-2021-40444 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.8 (NVD). EchelonGraph synthesises NVD + CISA KEV + FIRST EPSS + GHSA into a combined EG score of 9.0 (CRITICAL).
Which products are affected by CVE-2021-40444?
CVE-2021-40444 affects Microsoft MSHTML.
How do I remediate CVE-2021-40444?
A fix for CVE-2021-40444 is available: update to the fixed version the vendor names in its advisory. The vendor advisories EchelonGraph has for CVE-2021-40444 are linked in the Vendor Advisories panel on this page.

Dependency Blast Radius

Explore the affected products and dependency analysis for CVE-2021-40444

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