Microsoft Word may open hole to hackers

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by Prince_Serendip, Sep 14, 2002.

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  1. Prince_Serendip

    Prince_Serendip Registered Member

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    Microsoft Word may open hole to hackers

    Microsoft Corp. on Friday said it was investigating a security flaw in its word processing software that could allow an attacker to steal sensitive computer files by using an innocent-looking Word document.

    "Microsoft is still in the initial stages of testing the flaw and will determine the best fix possible based on these findings," the company said in a statement.

    Based on the flaws uncovered by security experts, an attacker could send a Word document to an intended victim, asking that they modify and return it, according to Woody Leonhard, publisher of the Web site www.woodyswatch.com, which looks at the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software.

    Meanwhile, a secret code in the document could be used to grab files on the victim's computer that would then be transferred back to the attacker along with the original document, he wrote in a report.

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  2. Jooske

    Jooske Registered Member

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    So if in some newsgroup a person is posting desparate s/he can't open a certain word document and asking to try if for him/her and send it opened back that is to be very very cautious, especially when you can open it normally just using a Words version and better just post how you opened it without remailing the doc.
    In the doc i saw appearing recently i did not see anything from my system when i looked via wordpad and notepad after opening it in Word, so it might have been really a desparate person, if there are no other reasons/protections for my system info not showing up.
     
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