Microsoft to patch Excel hole, seven others

A correction was made to this story. See below for details.

Microsoft on Thursday said next week's Patch Tuesday would include eight patches, five of them critical, including one addressing a vulnerability in Excel.

A company representative declined to confirm whether the patch for its spreadsheet software addresses a vulnerability that has seen "zero-day attacks" which target unpatched security holes. But given the fact that both that Excel vulnerability and the Excel patch slated for Tuesday affect Microsoft Office 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2007, as well as Microsoft Office 2004 and 2008 for the Mac, it could be the same weakness.

Security firm Symantec said in February that it had discovered malicious files in the wild in Japan that attempt to exploit the Excel Unspecified Remote Code Execution Vulnerability. The attack requires a computer user to open an attachment sent via e-mail that has a maliciously crafted Excel document.

Also on Tuesday, Microsoft will provide updates addressing critical remote code execution vulnerability in Internet Explorer, Windows, and Office, and less severe vulnerabilities in Windows and Microsoft's Forefront Edge Security.

Affected software includes IE 7, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Server 2003, and Server 2008, according to Microsoft's advance-notification bulletin, released on the Thursday before every Patch Tuesday, which is the second Tuesday of the month.

Correction: This story initially gave the wrong day of Microsoft's announcement. It was made Thursday, April 9.

[rmva]

Typo in the first sentence: Should be Thursday instead of Tuesday.

[jenguevin]

You're right! Thanks for pointing this out. We're fixing it now.

Jennifer Guevin
Assistant managing editor
CNET News

[wayneb22]

Wow microjunks monthly attempt to make Windows Suck Less!

[monkeyfun14]

Fail Troll Fails


People like you need to be banned from the internet.

[BogusBasin]

Microsoft should close down and give the money back to the shareholders. Amen

[Commander_Spock]

So, what do you plan to do after they do that - go fishing or golfing!

Remember these words by Confucius: "The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall"!

[Commander_Spock]

Re: "So, what do you plan to do after they do that - go fishing or golfing!"

Here was the reason for the question:

Re: "In the Beginning DOS - 1981

In 1981 when the original IBM Personal Computer was announced, IBM released three operating systems for it. How many of you remember that? Since I wrote the first IBM course on how to fix this original PC, I had to know at least a little about all three of them.

IBM decided early in the development process of the PC that they did not want to hire a bunch of programmers to write software for it - especially an operating system. IBM wanted the hardware business and did not care about the software. Since there was no clear-cut contender for an operating system at the time, IBM approached three organizations about writing one for the PC.

IBM first approached Digital Research and asked them to create a version of CP/M (Control Program/Microcomputer). The owner of DR snubbed the IBM lawyers and went flying or golfing (depending upon whose story you hear) instead.

IBM then turned to Microsoft. Bill Gates was very receptive to the IBM overture and also had information about an operating system which had already been written that would fill IBM's need very nicely. Gates said yes to IBM, bought the operating system called DOS for $20,000 and modified it somewhat to run on the IBM PC.

For you trivia buffs, the other OS delivered with the original PC was the UCSD P-System (University of California at San Diego Pseudo code System). I will permit those who make a living from documenting the history of computers to describe that operating system elsewhere...."

http://www.os2bbs.com/OS2News/OS2History.html

Now, imagine what living without a PC in your world might have been like today and you talk about Code-Base OS/2 (Microsoft) going away - Huh!

[DrtyDogg]

They don't have to close down to do that, I get my check from them every 3 months.

[biffhenerson]

Given the magnitued of the task and the hundreds of millions of lines of code in the software that they maintain, thier software is of remarkably high quality and getting better each year. The industry has come a long way in the past 10 years. Both in quality and patch management. We still have a long way to go to be perfect. Microsoft will get there sooner than I.

[JCPayne]

Yeah soo people wont have to pay to upgrade it anymore... You can just sit on whatever software you have.

[Dalkorian]

If you're lucky your master will be more gentle than usual while whipping the snot out of you.

[Steve_KTG]

I suppose no program is totally safe. I wasn't aware of this many security holes of any relevancy with excel. I'll leave the anti MSFT remarks to the horde though as I like to call them. www.justaskgemalto.com has some solid general and specific digital security advice though for the average consumer.