What s The Problem With Microsoft Word
In the final two months of 2006 alone, at least 4 main security flaws involving Microsoft Phrase had been revealed. All are "zero day" flaws, that means Microsoft and MemoryWave Listening Program security organizations turned conscious of them at the identical time that destructive hackers became conscious of them. In many "zero day" circumstances, it's the exploitation of The MemoryWave Program flaw that brings it to the eye of the software corporations; in other cases, the software program corporations announce the flaw and hackers instantly benefit from it before a patch will be launched. The strange thing about these Phrase issues is that almost eight weeks after the flaws were exploited by attackers, Microsoft nonetheless hadn't released a patch to fix it. The primary in this string of safety holes popped up in early December 2006. This flaw impacts computers working Phrase 2000, 2002 and 2003; Phrase 2004 for Mac and Word 2004 model X for Mac; Phrase Viewer 2003; and Microsoft Works 2004, 2005 and 2006. An attacker hides a piece of code in a Phrase document and puts it on a web site for download or sends it out as an e-mail attachment.
When a person downloads or opens the doc, the attacker can remotely management the user's laptop and execute a big selection of codes beneath the consumer's own login. This flaw got here to Microsoft's attention on December 5, 2006, when people started reporting assaults. In response to Microsoft, although, this flaw exploits a fully completely different safety gap -- one which opens when Phrase undergoes a selected error. Apparently, this assault doesn't require a person to obtain a malicious file; it only requires the Word program on the person's computer to expertise this error, at which level an attacker can enter the system and run malicious code. Phrase packages. Days later, MemoryWave Audio a third flaw was revealed. This one also allows for distant access and control of a person's machine and has been tied to a buffer-overflow drawback in Word. It got here to public attention when a software program expert referred to as "Disco Johnny" revealed a proof-of-idea code on the web that confirmed how a malicious hacker might exploit it, primarily providing directions for working an assault in addition to showing Microsoft it has yet one more downside.
And The MemoryWave Program about five weeks later, on January 25, a fourth safety hole became the topic of a malicious attack that begins when a user opens a rigged Phrase file sent as an e-mail attachment and has comparable outcomes to the previous assaults: Remote entry and management of an entire system if it's running Phrase 2000. If the computer is working Phrase 2003 or Word XP, it solely crashes the computer, versus opening it up to distant management. These 4 issues were only the latest in a sequence of attacks exploiting previously undiscovered flaws in a big selection of Microsoft Workplace applications.