Yahoo! News - Microsoft Warns of Security Risks in Office, IE

August 22, 2002

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Technology - Reuters

Microsoft Warns of Security Risks in Office, IE

Thu Aug 22, 9:53 PM ET

By son

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. said on

Thursday that "critical" security lapses in its Office

software and Internet Explorer Web browser put tens of

millions of users at risk of having their files read and

altered by online attackers.

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The world's No. 1 software maker said that an attacker,

using e-mail or a Web page, could use Internet related parts of

Office to run programs, alter data and wipe out the hard drive

as well as view file and clipboard contents on a user's system.

Office is a software product that runs on Windows and is

used to write documents and crunch numbers.

"Microsoft is committed to keeping customers' information

safe, and is providing a patch that eliminates three

vulnerabilities in Office Web Components," Microsoft Security

Program Manager Budd said in an e-mail.

In addition, Microsoft reported vulnerabilities in the

three latest versions of its dominant Internet Explorer browser

software that allows infiltrators to read files.

Microsoft urged users to fix the glitches by downloading

software patches from Microsoft's TechNet Web site

(

http://www.microsoft.com/technet).

"It's important that users get the patch," said Russ

, head of security at TruSecure Corp., a computer

security company, and editor of NTBugTraq.

"Typically with these types of issues it will be six to

nine months until we see a massive attempt to start exploiting

it," said, adding that a preemptive patch was critical.

Since Office is used by at least 100 million users, the

risk of widespread attacks was significant, said.

The security warnings are the latest headaches for the

Redmond, Washington-based software company.

Microsoft, shaken by break-ins to its system and

vulnerabilities in its software, launched a "trustworthy

computing" campaign earlier this year to improve the security

of all of its software.

Since that initiative, which chairman Bill Gates (

news -

web sites) said had

cost the company $100 million so far this year, Microsoft has

issued at least 30 security bulletins for flaws in its

software.

Last week, security experts reported serious flaws in the

Internet Explorer browser and a complementary encryption

program that could expose credit card and other sensitive

information of Internet users.

The Office-related programs vulnerable to attacks include

Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, Money 2002, Money 2003,

Project 2002 as well as server software related to such client

software, Microsoft said.

Microsoft said it is not aware of any specific security

breaches or the amount of any potential damage that might have

occurred due to vulnerabilities in its software.

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