Comments on: Excel under zero-day attack, Microsoft warns

Spreadsheet-focused attack affects several versions of company's Office software, including one for Macs.

[ArturoYee]

Confused -

I cannot run Office XP on Mac/OS X. How can that be?
Can only run Offices XP on Windows OS...

[MacHeads]

You can run it

Using Parrallels or Fusion or Bootcamp . Parrallels will run the
environment in a virtual machine bootcamp will need you to boot
to xp but then again there is OpenOffice that runs perfectly on the
mac .

[Commander_Spock]

Deal of the day; and, a simple solution...

... for you - Run OpenOffice on eComStation (formerly OS/2 Warp - Windows' better half-brother and the OS that banks and the "smart" Russians love) You get OpenOffice (with plenty of Lotus SmartSuite "code" inside) for "free" and you pay less than half-price the price of Windows for eComStation. Quite sure you do not need a rocket scientist to tell you what your savings will be. And just imagine - you do not get locked-in a proprietary office suite!

[kelmon]

Office:mac 2004

Unless the article has been modified it seems pretty clear that the
Mac-aspect of it refers to a vulnerability within the version of Excel
distributed as part of the Office:mac 2004 package. While this is
disturbing news in that a virus writer can use Excel 2004 as a
backdoor into OS X it isn't particularly worrying since it continues
to rely on the user opening the malicious spreadsheet so active
participation is necessary.

[ArturoYee]

Confused -

I cannot run Office XP on Mac/OS X. How can that be?
Can only run Offices XP on Windows OS...

[MacHeads]

You can run it

Using Parrallels or Fusion or Bootcamp . Parrallels will run the
environment in a virtual machine bootcamp will need you to boot
to xp but then again there is OpenOffice that runs perfectly on the
mac .

[Commander_Spock]

Deal of the day; and, a simple solution...

... for you - Run OpenOffice on eComStation (formerly OS/2 Warp - Windows' better half-brother and the OS that banks and the "smart" Russians love) You get OpenOffice (with plenty of Lotus SmartSuite "code" inside) for "free" and you pay less than half-price the price of Windows for eComStation. Quite sure you do not need a rocket scientist to tell you what your savings will be. And just imagine - you do not get locked-in a proprietary office suite!

[kelmon]

Office:mac 2004

Unless the article has been modified it seems pretty clear that the
Mac-aspect of it refers to a vulnerability within the version of Excel
distributed as part of the Office:mac 2004 package. While this is
disturbing news in that a virus writer can use Excel 2004 as a
backdoor into OS X it isn't particularly worrying since it continues
to rely on the user opening the malicious spreadsheet so active
participation is necessary.

[ArturoYee]

I See - only 2004 version for Macs

I see now ...

[ArturoYee]

I See - only 2004 version for Macs

I see now ...

[wbenton]

A New Microsoft Twist or what?

Microsoft usually denies other's claims of a zero-day flaw while they claim their engineers are checking up on it.

But this time around... Microsoft comes out with the information first?!?!?! (* BAFFLED *)

Microsoft still has 4 Zero-day Word flaws as of yet still in an unpatched state and now this Excel one... and brought up by Microsoft first!!!

Somebody has been aware of the flaw since they showed it to Microsoft (probably several months ago) and they probably pushed Microsoft to come out with this notice themselves...

Otherwise it's just not Microsoft-ish at all!

Likewise... even though they mention the zero-day flaw... where's the patch for it and/or when will it be released... along with the other 4 Word zero-day flaws?

No mention of them here either... now that's Microsoft-ish!!!

Walt

[wbenton]

A New Microsoft Twist or what?

Microsoft usually denies other's claims of a zero-day flaw while they claim their engineers are checking up on it.

But this time around... Microsoft comes out with the information first?!?!?! (* BAFFLED *)

Microsoft still has 4 Zero-day Word flaws as of yet still in an unpatched state and now this Excel one... and brought up by Microsoft first!!!

Somebody has been aware of the flaw since they showed it to Microsoft (probably several months ago) and they probably pushed Microsoft to come out with this notice themselves...

Otherwise it's just not Microsoft-ish at all!

Likewise... even though they mention the zero-day flaw... where's the patch for it and/or when will it be released... along with the other 4 Word zero-day flaws?

No mention of them here either... now that's Microsoft-ish!!!

Walt