CVE-2023-7101

Arbitrary Code Execution (ACE) Vulnerability

HIGH

7.8

CVSS Score

Published: December 24, 2023 at 09:34 PM UTC

Updated: June 17, 2026 at 06:52 AM UTC

5 products affected across 4 vendorsDebian LinuxFedoraSpreadsheet::parseexcel

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Severity

HIGH7.8

Exploitation

CISA KEV

Exploit prediction

EPSS 19%

SSVC

Active

Actively Exploited

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog

EPSS Score19.0%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) estimates a 19.0% chance this CVE is exploited in the wild within the next 30 days — higher than 97% of all CVEs. It complements CVSS: a high EPSS on a mid-severity CVE can still be urgent.

Spreadsheet::ParseExcel contains a remote code execution vulnerability due to passing unvalidated input from a file into a string-type “eval”. Specifically, the issue stems from the evaluation of Number format strings within the Excel parsing logic.

Required Action

Apply mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

Ransomware Use

Unknown

Added to KEV

Jan 2, 2024

Remediation Due

Jan 23, 2024

1008 days overdue

Notes

This vulnerability affects a common open-source component, third-party library, or a protocol used by different products. Please check with specific vendors for information on patching status. For more information, please see: https://metacpan.org/dist/Spreadsheet-ParseExcel and Barracuda's specific implementation and fix for their downstream issue CVE-2023-7102 at https://www.barracuda.com/company/legal/esg-vulnerability

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-7101

Description

Spreadsheet::ParseExcel version 0.65 is a Perl module used for parsing Excel files. Spreadsheet::ParseExcel is vulnerable to an arbitrary code execution (ACE) vulnerability due to passing unvalidated input from a file into a string-type “eval”. Specifically, the issue stems from the evaluation of Number format strings (not to be confused with printf-style format strings) within the Excel parsing logic.