Microsoft warns of PowerPoint zero-day flaw
Hackers have launched attacks targeting an unpatched flaw in Microsoft PowerPoint, the company warned Thursday.
The vulnerability, which affects Microsoft Office 2000 SP3, 2002 SP3, and 2003 SP3, can be exploited by getting a person to open a PowerPoint file rigged for the attack. When the file is opened, PowerPoint will access an invalid object in memory. That then allows an attacker to remotely execute code on the system.
In a security advisory, Microsoft said that at present, attacks are not widespread but are tailored to affect specific victims.
"Microsoft is investigating new reports of a vulnerability in Microsoft Office PowerPoint that could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted PowerPoint file," said the advisory. "At this time, we are aware only of limited and targeted attacks that attempt to use this vulnerability."
While there is currently no fix for the PowerPoint flaw, Microsoft said that it may release one outside its monthly patching schedule. Workarounds suggested by the company include not opening files received from untrusted sources, using the Microsoft Office Isolated Conversion Environment (MOICE) to open untrusted files, and using Microsoft Office File Block policy to restrict the opening of Office 2003 and earlier documents.
Microsoft's last major PowerPoint patches were released in August.
Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from London.
"Use OpenOffice.org"
"This is why I run OSX :p"
"Linux doesn't have these problems"
"Vista sucks" <-- yes somehow that comes up in every comment somewhere.
"Everyone has just as many bugs as Microsoft, get off your high horse!!"
I know I didn't cover all of the comments, but its a good start.
And where are those news articles again? I can't seem to find them. Maybe there out there with the ones on how George Bush is an American hero...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5996253.ece
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-746.pdf
right there. maybe you should look a little harder, lest you look like an idiot.
"An interesting and very e?ective twist was that the attackers did not just use the
social information they gained from their initial attack to send plausible phish. They also
stole mail in transit and replaced the attachments with toxic ones. Figure 1 shows an
email whose body was stolen from the mailbox of a user and then used to construct the
attack by attaching a malicious payload."
Unfortunately, with a Zero Day exploit, there may not be AV detection for this. All someone has to do is create a PowerPoint presentation (examples of which abound on the internet) of photographs of Military personnel or some other "excellent cause" and add the exploit to them. Then they start an email that snowballs into being passed all around the U.S. (or world). Email can move so quickly that by the time the AV vendors can get detection code out there, it is sometimes too late.
I know everyone has flaws, and I'm not gonna hold one over the other based on number of patches, but when MS has a documented 7 year vulnerability because it would break apps thats ridiculous....its not like XP and Vista didn't do most of that for us anyway on release so why not just fix it then and let the developers of the apps deal with it?
There you go. It was right there in th article.
In other words....we might wait a month......sadly unacceptable.
"In other words....we might wait a month......sadly unacceptable. "
Or it could be tomorrow. You don't know, I don't know. Microsoft has released out of cycle patches in the matter of days or in some cases just hours.
It is very sad/unacceptable indeed that you are not tolerant of the reality of the situation. It may be that you are just ignorant, and that is understandable, but it is no excuse for your comments regardless. It is your opinion, and just that- your opinion only.
You speak for your company and your company only in this regard. Sales of Office 2007 speak otherwise.
We gave it some paprin and it works just fine now. Or maybe it worked just fine out of the box? i just can't remember...
"Sales of Office 2007 speak otherwise."
You must own stock in MS considering how often you post your allegiance to MS no matter what the topic.
You couldn't possible have a job and still have as much time as you do to post on ever single MS or Apple related article on this site. Give it a rest already.
Sales of Vista also indicate that it's toppled XP as the standard OS.
Oh wait, downgrade licenses...
From a licensing point of view, roughly 65% of our 12,000 office deployments are of the 2007 flavor. In reality, we've got one deployment of it from a director that absolutely has to have the latest and greatest... and he hates it. The 500 user test group we deployed it to hated it. We hate it.
"In reality, we've got one deployment of it from a director that absolutely has to have the latest and greatest... and he hates it. The 500 user test group we deployed it to hated it. We hate it. "
Okay, the to be clear about the subject, you are biased and by no means a reliable source beyond the fact that you don't like the product. That means the original comment that you and your company alone do not like it and cannot speak for anyone else.
@catbutt5:
Nah, I just prefer to make the facts known and truth public. When I see someone spouting BS, I'll call them on it.
maybe for the same reasons people send money to that million $ offer from Nigeria or whatever!
Quote: I don't know many companies that actually use the bloated office 2007 suite. "
Well, I don't know a lot of Companies using Office 2000 either.
Firstly, please spell my name right. It took me a few moments to realize you were referencing me. My comment was in response to the first comment in that thread, claiming it's obsolete or discontinued when it's far from it. As for bloated, it takes forever to open any Office 2007 application, there converters for it are barely functional, the interface throws the baby out with the bathwater, and it's resource usage is roughly twice what it's equivalent in '03 was. Change for the sake of change. Bloated.
He also says it's been deployed to 7800 people (65% of 12,000 workstations- his numbers). Does it make sense if every single person of a 500 person test group hated the product that the company would go ahead and roll it out to 7800 people? No, of course not. It's ridiculous. His own numbers show that it would be foolish to spend money on a product you don't want. But then- if the company that hates it as much as he claims has gone ahead and decided to roll it out to that many systems, then perhaps his 500 person test group's numbers aren't really what he makes them to be.
I'm just saying his numbers simply don't add up. If they really do mean anything, then it means either his company has no idea what it is doing or Michichael doesn't.
- by icarus68 April 3, 2009 9:41 PM PDT
- what a clever way to get people to upgrade to the latest version of the software. why wouldn't i be surprised that these virii emerge from the bellevue lair?
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