Holes in PowerPoint and Excel 277
jeffy124 writes: "Looks like it's time for IIS and Outlook to make room on the pedestal of security holes. Just about every recent version of PowerPoint and Excel are vulnerable to being taken over to control the system remotely. The hole is a macro-related, as it's possible to bypass asking the user if they'd like a macro to run. Microsoft's advisory can be found here."
Funny. I always thought that PowerPoint was already at least as destructive as macro viruses to corporate productivity. You ever watch a suit fiddle with his presentation?
Macs too (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Macs too (Score:2, Funny)
OpenOffice.org (Score:2, Interesting)
It does work.
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes us think that Open Office and Star Office are immune from similar attacks, or things like buffer overflows?
I like free software, but I think it's just urban legend that software not written by microsoft is somehow magically secure. (Witness: BIND, wu_ftpd, sendmail, rpc.*, etc...)
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:2, Insightful)
I haven't evaluated scripting in OpenOffice though, can someone comment on the possibility for malicious code being run there at all?
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:2, Insightful)
OK, that's fair -- I suppose the corporate machine is typically slower at responding to a bug than the free software community. (Though, if you read bugtraq, you'll know that there have frequently been cases of much longer delays in commercial and free software alike!)
However, I think a better metric than how quickly things are patched is the number of holes in the default install. Most users don't install patches, anyway, so this is what really matters for them.
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:2)
But Microsoft's scripting bugs are a different story. As a general rule, computers should not execute foreign code without asking. That's just common sense to anyone except Microsoft.
Ah well... At least no one has written a really harmful virus so far.
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:3, Insightful)
There are two aspects here. First, while you are right that other groups also have written buggy and insecure software, Microsoft's record is particularly abysmal. Most of the big holes in free software were found early on, at the time the internet just started booming and noone had experience with security. We may not yet be perfect, but we have been learning a lot.
The second aspect is even more important. A monoculture is always more suspectible to attack than a diverse ecosystem. If we use more different tools, we will survive viruses and worms a lot better. Consider Code Red: If it hit a host with Apache, it did not use this host for further propagation. Not only did the server stay up, the spread of the virus also slowed down.
So having many different (but preferable interoperable) software systems is inherently beneficial. And yes, this applies to BIND just as well as to Microsoft.
Easier to fix? (Score:2)
It took me months to find my first crashing bug in Mozilla (and that bugfix was obsolete by the time I got the patch to the developers).
The coolest thing about having the source is that when you disagree with the developers, you can Just Hack It. This doesn't buy you much if you then rely on your hacked copy (and have to maintain your hack), but it gives a much more level playing field if you want to discuss why making such a change would be a good thing, because you can show them how your proposal would behave.
In the case of MS Office, first thing I would have done years ago if I had the source is instrument the binary just to find out who is using macros and what for. I hate being told by users that they need dangerous feature X, only to learn later that they don't know how to use it if their lives depended on it.
Windows and Macintosh (Score:5, Funny)
One more hole (Score:4, Insightful)
One exploit serves all
Re:One more hole (Score:5, Funny)
Macros and scripting (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Macros and scripting (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Macros and scripting (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't the scripting per se. It's the fact that the scripts are actually stored in the document files. In other words, they mix data and code.
On Unix, lots of applications have extremely powerfull scripting languages. Just think about the stuff you can do with Emacs (elisp) and the Gimp (which uses guile, a full Scheme interpreter). But the user has to explicitly install them. They aren't hidden away in some document.
Re:Macros and scripting (Score:2)
I can't remember the exact syntax, but you can put elisp statements in a comment section of the file and have Emacs execute them when opening the document. Since it's not that easy to turn the feature on (I can't remember how), it's unlikely to ever be used widely enough to become a vector. For Emacs' problem space, there are a number of non-scripting solutions that mostly fill the need.
Emacs security flaws. (Score:5, Interesting)
And they used to be enabled by default - which was a big vulnerability if you used them as a mail reader or netnews reader. A simple string embedded in the letter or posting could do anything YOU could do in emacs - which means anything you could do from a shell, too.
Fortunately the first well-known public exploit was a netnews posting demoing the bug by popping up a window and telling you how to turn it off. The default was changed in the next release.
The days of the MIT AI lab were a more innocent time. To keep the students from crashing the machine they made it trivial - with a well-documented command to do it. The idea being that if there were no reputation points to be earned by "finding a way to crash the machine" but lots of negative ones to be had by annoying the other students, everybody would get bored with it quickly. Stallman continued the tradition later by having no root password on his personal machine for quite a while.
Unfortunately, about one person in a hundred (one in 50 to one in 200) is a psychopath - a person with a brain problem analogous to color blindness that amounts to "no concience". Some fraction of these don't compensate by learning that hurting others is bad for number one and becoming "good" by deliberate effort.
So when you have hundreds of millions of people on the internet, you end up with a few "black hat" hackers and a host of script kiddies. So the days of innocence (and Stallman's open root account) are long over.
Now internet-connected computers hold information of value that can be stolen and run mission-critical functions for businesses with cutthroat competitors. So a management order to install mass-market stoftware with a history of well-known major security holes has graduated from administrative cluelessness to a severe breach of fiduciary duty.
Re:Macros and scripting (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, Emacs mixes data and code in the same way. Check the File Variables section in the info system, and in particular the enable-local-eval variable. Basically, you can set buffer local variables by embedding the commands for this at the end of the file. One of these variables is 'eval' :-). Thus spake RMS:
In this sense Emacs is just as guilty as Microsoft Office. Just because it's Free doesn't mean it is without security free. (But the fact that the average person using Emacs is more clued in than you Power Point suit, does help...)
Re:Macros and scripting (Score:2)
Re:Macros and scripting (Score:2)
Conceptually, it is similar, but there is a difference worth noting: the elisp code in an eval file variable has obviously to be in cleartext within the document, and with the `maybe' default option, the code is expressely shown before asking confirmation for execution. To confirm you have to type ``yes <enter>'' in order to execute it, while the default answer is ``no'', and everything else just make the confirmation request appear again.
Basically, what I am saying is that Emacs at least do a good job in attracting the user attention and make people think twice before confirming, or al least discourages the casual user (which is ironic, I believe, since there are probably vastly more Office casual users out there than Emacs casual users).
BTW, once I heard a story about a sysadmin tired of having to ``fix'' a departmental network printer because it has just run out of paper.
Eventually, he managed to make appear on the users' screen a dialog window when things went wrong. The message explained that one should check the paper before calling the tech support.
Calls to tech support for this printer greately decreased after that, but still there were calls for the empty paper tray.
So he changed the message (and the code displaying it), and it would read like ``The printer has not printed your documnent, please check if it just run out of paper before calling tech support. In this message there is a typo: press the letter of the typo to close this window.'', and finally calls to tech support just to fill the paper tray finally went to zero.
If there is a moral to this story (probably fictional, but who knows), it is that things that are not important should look as non important and things that are important (security, wink, wink) should look as important, and not as something you can dismiss just with a click on one of the buttons (to make the problem ``go away'').
Educate the users (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not foolproof but it does make the people at my job aware of one of the many ways that viruses are spread.
This hole could be in more versions that listed! (Score:4, Interesting)
Tested Versions:
Microsoft tested the following products to assess whether they are affected by these vulnerabilities. Previous versions are no longer supported, and may or may not be affected by these vulnerabilities.
Office 98 for Macintosh
Office 2001 for Macintosh
Office 2000 for Windows
Office 2002 for Windows
Do note - just because older versions aren't supported Microsoft won't check if the whole is there!
Re:This hole could be in more versions that listed (Score:2)
Gork
Re:This hole could be in more versions that listed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This hole could be in more versions that listed (Score:2)
...and students, engineers, IT management, teachers, , researchers, training staff, etc.
Just because you haven't seen people use PowerPoint doesn't mean that it doesn't get used. I can't help that your job/experiences don't include presenting/being presented information to/from others.
Good presentation software is invaluable to business and education. Just because some people waste hours with screen swipes, cheesy clip-art, and other useless crap doesn't mean that it's not useful. Once I have my content finalized, I can whip up a decent looking presentation in PowerPoint in about 1/2 hour... faster than I could ever do it by hand.
Re:This hole could be in more versions that listed (Score:2)
- Students, maybe, especially if they are marketing students...
- Engineers? Maybe, the same kind of engineers that build schools out of cardboard [slashdot.org].
- IT Management? Yes, that's IT management, i.e. suits. I doubt that the developers, system engineers, designers etc would use that piece of shite.
- Researchers? Nope, those use latex or slitex.
- Training staff? Suits too.
I can't help that your job/experiences don't include presenting/being presented information to/from others.Just because you need to do a presentation does not mean that you have to do it using crappy software.
Good presentation software is invaluable to business and education.
Yes, good presentation software is invaluable.
Re:This hole could be in more versions that listed (Score:2)
Most researchers don't use LaTeX for presentations. I would venture to guess that most Physics and Math professors don't even use LaTeX for presentations. I've seen some LaTeX presentations and I've even made one. It is my opinion that WYSIWYG is much more important for creating slides than it is for creating a document.
Re:This hole could be in more versions that listed (Score:2)
I would love to hear about alternatives, but right now powerpoint is the best presentation software I've seen and I have a win2000 partition especially for it.
Re:This hole could be in more versions that listed (Score:2)
I have never used PowerPoint, but I can certainly say it is responsible for incredible numbers of terrifyingly bad presentations, so I think there are ample good reasons behind the prejudice.
I used Macromedia Flash for my last presentation - as cross-platform as it gets, and I was amazed at how flexible it was and how (comparatively) gentle the learning curve. It's well worth checking out in my view.
D
Re:HTML presentations are good and right (Score:2)
I'm not trying to say that you have a bad idea. I am genuinely interested in doing what you said, but I want to make sure that I can print a copy of the slides in case I can't use the computer during the presentation.
Re:HTML presentations are good and right (Score:2)
screwing things up?
Sure, just make up a stylesheet that causes your presentation to be printable, call it "printable.css" and then switch that one occurence of the string "presentable.css" to "printable.css" in your presentation when you want to print it.
Re:HTML presentations are good and right (Score:2)
Obviously... (Score:5, Insightful)
Safety in prehistory (Score:2)
So if you have that ancient version lying around, you may want to use it. Or use programs with Word or Excel import filters instead of the real thing.
Anyone know if StarOffice is affected? When I checked it a few years back, it looked like it had a pretty complete emulation of VBA.
D
Re:Safety in prehistory (Score:2)
There's also other vendors like Corel WordPerfect that have licenced VBA from Microsoft. It's unclear if this is a problem in the VBA runtime or the Excel/PowerPoint fileformats though.
next worm (Score:2, Interesting)
Is the hole exploitable in Mac OS X? Does the unix architecture and security prevent this from being a problem?
Excel worm seems unlikely (Score:2)
Outlook/IIS have many holes; it is very rare that someone has bothered to write a worm that uses them. I personally won't be holding my breath for these exploits to be used in one. You aren't a reporter or AV person are you?
That Microsoft advisory states that Macintosh versions are affected, yes. I doubt the OS matters much with viruses that rely on a macro language within an application rather than using the OS itself or its services to propagate.
Must be a slow news day... (Score:3, Offtopic)
Re:Must be a slow news day... (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft attempting to do something about it: news.
Microsoft fixing vulnerability in old versions: would really be news.
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
These things first appeared in 1996 or so. Word.Concept or what was it called. Microsoft responded by disabling the AutoLoad macro (or whatever it's called). Now somebody found a new way to make Excel/etc. execute stuff when loading a file. Big deal.
I wonder why virus writes bother at all. They can just put a button labeled "Click here" on the page, and 95% of the lusers will click it. The only defense against that is just disabling all macro support. And everybody knows that isn't going to happen.
Re:So what? (Score:2)
The response from the 2.2 million users on our network was 20 people whined. Corperates response was protecting 2.2 users from viruses while disabling useless features was worth it. Those 20 will have to live with it or find employment elsewhere. This is the same group that set up the firewall and email servers to strip all attchments and to begin a no-attachment polocy for email. Internal users are required to use FTP and Server shares for file transfers external users are required to use password protected FTP downloads.
It's about time too.. I was getting sick of people sending everyone 50Meg presentations and images that are "cute". by forcing people to put efort behind sending a file it reduces the amount of crap clogging the corperate bandwidth.
Now If I could convince them that outlook and exchange need to be changed to at least CC:Mail or some stable and secure groupware suite.
Re:So what? (Score:2)
Sounds like windows update. [microsoft.com]
~z
Re:So what? (Score:2)
Everything is either NT or Linux based, so you need to crack the admin password to install a modem. No W2000 here, that ensures no USB devices can work. (See NT4.0 does have security!)
Corperate went overboard this past month on security, it's really really tight. You cant do what you say you can here......
Except... for one small thing, and they say 128Bit encryption is unbreakable......
The 802.11b wireless network, sit in your car and crack the network like an egg in 23 minutes.
All because the security guys think they know everything.... Oh well, I have my "I told you so" already on file
Modifying Asimov's first law of robotics (Score:2, Informative)
I posted the following in various usenet groups last year. Given the recent events it is well worth the read...
Subject: Microsoft Applications Security
Date: 2000/05/28
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=slrn8j2cen
"This continued virus threat is not ONLY an email or Outlook problem it extends to all Microsoft Office products, Microsofts internet explorer as well as a lot of third party software for the Microsoft OS platforms."
Even with all the patches, anti-virus scanners and proxy firewall, it will not stop the average user clicking on an embedded https:// URL link in an email and downloading and opening a Microsoft format document with an embedded script containing a new "unknown" virus/malware.
Office users share documents over the net all the time, the inclusion of executable blocking, "run script" dialogs and digital script "signing" is a big improvement, but it all can be circumvented by a little social engineering.
Really? (Score:2)
" Funny. I always thought that PowerPoint was already at least as destructive as macro viruses to corporate productivity. You ever watch a suit fiddle with his presentation?"
Funny
Scripting and office suites (Score:2, Interesting)
This does not seem to be a problem unique to Miscrosoft Office. Wouldn't this type of security hole be possible in any office suite with scripting/macro capabilities? Do KOffice or StarOffice not support macros (I've never used them, so I don't know)?
Kudos to MSFT for making a patch immediately available, but I must say that MSFT's constantly having to play catch-up with secuirty holes does not make me real confident in .NET's data safeguard capabilities.
Re:Scripting and office suites (Score:2)
My guess (just a guess, dont flame if I'm wrong) is they do use macros, but those macros dont have the same priviliges as MS's macros do. For example, does a macro really need complete access to the filesystem of the machine? That's one of the things a macro virus exploiting this hole can do and start deleting files.
I think KOffice's and SO's developers learned from MS and would decide to not allow such possibilities.
Re:Scripting and office suites (Score:3, Insightful)
--
Evan
Re:Scripting and office suites (Score:2)
1) Microsoft has said (real developers not marketing drones) that security was a huge focus of
2)
Now, this doesn't mean that it's "airtight", but I believe that it will prove to be more resiliant from a security standpoint.
Re:Scripting and office suites (Score:2)
Wow! That is particularly innovative of Mircrosoft to innovate Java's security model like that. After innovative years of claiming that Java's model was too complicated for innovative programmers, Microsoft has finally innovated upon their word and embraced the model. Now that's what I call real innovation!! Thank you Justics Department!
Re:Scripting and office suites (Score:2)
Re:Scripting and office suites (Score:2)
Re:Scripting and office suites (Score:2)
People abused by powerpoint (Score:2, Interesting)
So who else has watched someone by victimized by powerpoint? Add your anectdote as a reply.
Re:So, what do you use for presentations? (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, Powerpoint is the de facto standard.. Don't expect millions of business users to jump through hoops just because 'M$ sux0rs'
Unfortunatly, you ahave a point. Apparently, the billions of dollars wasted on cleanup after the MS exploit of the day haven't convinced enough people.
Perhaps macro viruses need to touch on corperate hotbutton issues in order for the suits to start thinking.
Perhaps the sexual harassment virus. You get it and it starts sending sexually harrasing email to your coworkers. If done well, the courts could be tied up for decades.
The IP virus, looks for documents containing trade secrets, and quietly posts them to random usenet groups.
Porn virus: Quietly downloads porn into your browser cache. Bonus points if the porn is illegal where you live.
Carnivore virus. Sends suspicious emails to the targets of FBI investigations.
Rootkit virus: Deploys a rootkit from your machine against a bank or government website. Instant felony.
Please note! I don't condone any of these, I just recognise that so far the holes in MS products have been used primarily for childish pranks rather than for real damage.
The least MS could do is at least TRY to limit the damage by putting macros in some sort of sandbox.
Re:So, what do you use for presentations? (Score:2)
As a software developer, if large numbers of my customers can't figure out how to use my software, I have failed. I should review my interface or documentation and address it.
As a presenter, if my presentation tool is distracting people from the message, it is failing.
In the example of the `phantom forwarding presentation' the user was probably faced with a much more complicated tool than they really needed. That may point to the need for a default `simple' mode in the software.
(I myself never using anything more than text bullets, and embedded diagrams that I generate elsewhere in a presentation. I use a presentation for communicating, not entertaining. And to be specific. I use AppleWorks. It is relatively feature free, but it does everything I've ever needed in an office suite except for log scales on graphs and its free (as in beer).)
powerpoint (Score:2, Insightful)
More than Word or Excel, Powerpoint is the killer app for office. Once Linux makes up something as tidy, fast and easy to use, corporate acceptance will go through the roof, just BECAUSE suits like to spend time playing with their slides.
Gerenal security bug rant (Score:3, Insightful)
The 'job security' aspect comes in because *someone* has to go around and patch every machine. *Someone* has to go round and install/test new virus software. I think it's past being 'common knowledge' that *by default* most MS products install themselves pretty insecurely. So someone has to learn about how to lock down those products - then actually do it. It's job security, choosing products which you KNOW will require you to always be updating them.
Yeah, I'm a bit overly cynical about this. I've met some people who really just think this is how computers are supposed to be - you're always playing 'catch up' to virus writers. The concept of prevention to them is installing the latest 'Norton' utility. Proactively analyzing the systems they have for potential vulnerabilities (turn off scripting on machines that don't need it, etc) just doesn't occur to them.
I'll be the first to admit that StarOffice/OpenOffice have not been up to snuff in the past, and even the current versions may not be up to snuff for everyone, but they're getting better. SO6 and the next OO may in fact be solid enough to let *many* in an organization use those as their primary or only Office applications, and let the few people that need the MS-specific features keep using MS Office. Yes, there'd be some relearning costs - figure that gets covered by the savings in upgrade licensing for those people.
Source of Lax Security (Score:3, Insightful)
I have done infosec in both a large funding-limited US government agency, and a well-funded network-savvy corporation. I'd like to suggest different reason lax security exists: funding.
In both cases, I saw that the IT support infrastructure (sysadmins, architects, desktop support, etc) were underfunded compared to the amount of new tasks and upkeep they were presented. These folks worked tirelessly just to keep their heads above the workflow. Security often added additional effort / steps / work to their already overwhelming load.
In the Gov't environment, this meant security practices were often ignored. Security was considered an additional effort, and the IT groups were not funded for it. Furthermore, there were few security experts (again - they were not funded for and rarely sought out). Often IT workers were oblivious to security practices to begin with.
In the well-funded corporate environment, implementing security practices involves a great deal of fighting and compromise. There was a well-funded infosec group who championed good security practices. However, the actual admin groups (who were otherwise excellent admins) were rarely knowledgable (or focused) on security issues. Their focus was simply to get things working. Thus, sometimes good security practices went in to place... sometimes security practices were compromised away... sometimes security practices were completely ignored.
It might be worth making another observation. I used to believe good security practices are just a part of being a good admin. I've changed my mind. It is a sign of an exceptional admin. A good unserstanding of infosec issues requires additional training and understanding that goes beyond the usual realm of administration. Infosec is a specialized skill. As such, those with knowledgeable admins should count themselves lucky. Most organizations will need to hire (or contract) infosec specialists who's focus is on secure (and workable - that's sometimes a tough tradeoff) implementations.
Job security, overload, and the scope of the prob. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a good idea to run things as Least Priviledge, where a process only has enough rights on the system to do what it needs to, and nothing more. The downside to this is that you have to understand everything the application does. That takes a lot of time and effort, and how often in your average-sized business is there a computer geek on staff who has the time to devote to figuring out how to install the app with just enough priviledges so it will run, but not so many that it is a security risk? Seriously, how much time does something like this take?
I know it took me years of thinking about it to understand the guts of Windows 9x, and understand and appreciate how it worked so I could get it to do what I wanted it to. Not because I'm not smart enough to figure it out, but just because there was so much other stuff going on that was urgently needed that I didn't have the time to sit down and figure it out. Gradually, bit by bit, I did figure it out. Not just what the software does, but how it works, why it does what it does, what the implications are for configuring it in a certain way and then deciding how to implement it. A similar scenario was encountered with Windows NT and 2000. Just in time for the Windows XP system to come along, with a new set of rules.
There is a hideous amount of complexity involved with these operating systems, each with their own quirks and behaviors, and understanding everything well enough to be able to dig around in the guts and know what's going on and know how to lock it down is way more than one person can comfortably do if they are doing anything else on the job.
I don't believe there is any magic bullet solution to this, either. There are common practices and techniques that help with securing your network, but there is no lock-n-load solution. We have found tools that help us along the way, but they only help to implement the strategy - they are not the strategy themselves.
It's easy to blame Microsoft, because everyone is running their software. That's their own fault - they've monopolized the marketplace such that everyone uses the same platform. Consequently pretty much everyone is vulnerable to the exact same set of vulnerabilities. Any other common platform will likely have vulnerabilities that can be exploited. I'm not convinced that there isn't a code-red like vulnerability out there for Apache, but Microsoft has been targetted. (On the other hand, it's clear that there are significant problems inside IIS, and as a manager I wonder if they shouldn't dump the source code and start from scratch with better coding practices.) I can recall that Apache *did* have a number of exploits a number of years ago, but many of these have been dealt with in the intervening years.
In any case, I don't think it's either carelessness or incompetence, but marketing. Software under Windows tends to be devastatingly easy to install (compared to Linux, Unix, NetWare and other environments). Mac may be easier. But, just because the software installs easily, does not mean it installs securely. Currently, ease-of-use, ease-to-install and security are at odds with each other.
The argument has been made to get applications to install with least priviledge by default. It's a good design goal, but I wonder if application developers will ever have that as a fundamental design goal for their software. Usually it's a major accomplishment when the silly thing compiles!
Re:Gerenal security bug rant (Score:2)
StarOffice NOW. (Score:2)
With the recent change in MS licensing policy NOW is the time for Sun to act and get their product in the door..
Re:StarOffice NOW. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:StarOffice NOW. (Score:2)
Yes. StarOffice NOW. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why exactly isn't this on the CDs of every distro, too? This should be there, as well as Mozilla.
Those two programs probably make Linux more desktop-worthy than any others, at least for people coming from a Windows environment.
If you're not really familiar with them, I wrote some pages on the subject - click my sig.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
Powerpoint (Score:2)
I know it's popular to bash Powerpoint, but I have to say that's one product without any acceptable replacements on the linux side. ("Impress" does not.
Re:Powerpoint (Score:2)
Re:Powerpoint (Score:2)
Three colors: red, black, and green.
With these and a stack of blank transparencies, I can go anywhere, and present a topic to any size audience, on any topic which I am knowledgeable about.
The only thing this approach lacks is the VERY OCCASIONALLY useful photograph or map.
Re:Powerpoint (Score:2)
Althoug h I agree about the occasional use of images/graphics/tables/charts, I think that markers and transparencies take longer to make presentations with.
I can sit down and fire out a PowerPoint presentation in about 20 minutes. After that, I only need to make content related revisions until I give the presentation. Writing transparencies by hand would take much longer.
Productivity (Score:5, Funny)
How does that hurt productivity? You seem to be implying that the suit would be doing something productive if he weren't using PowerPoint.
Is this piece of news interesting? (Score:2, Insightful)
perhaps a new category? (Score:2)
many /. readers are in tech support, maintaining M$ machines at work. these articles are useful: they serve a practical purpose.
however, maybe a new category for tech-support issues would be good.
I don't get it (Score:2)
I could rant on and on, but I'm not going to because, in fact, there just are no words to say how braindead this is.
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
you are quite right. how could this happen?
Execute-Macro-Code is written by Committee A (well probably Committee J through M, but you know :)
Detect-Nasty-Macro-Code is written by Committee B.
Closed source doesn't just apply to not letting outsiders see the source. With large projects like this, the philosophy is competitive: Manager A wants to look Better than Manager B. Thus, Manager A's techies are not allowed to talk to Manager B's techies. Result? Nobody gets to share code.
One of the great benefits of open source is that it wipes out this kind of stupid, anti-productive competitiveness.
It's amazing! (Score:2, Informative)
The most amazing thing of all these virii it that they all exist only due to one (and no more than one) function in the whole VBA language:
- CopyMacro
Maybe it has another name today, but it means exactly the same, copy a macro from a document to another. THAT'S AMAZING!!! Erradicating all these dam virii is much more easy to erradicate malaria from a non-tropical country, kill all the vectors.That's wright we don't even need to kill the vector, all we need is to avoid the vectors to infect the host. This dam macro must not exist anymore!!!
Simple as that, and M$ doesn't seems to want to solve the problem.
What I really want to know is... (Score:2)
Re:What I really want to know is... (Score:2, Interesting)
Office Updater (Score:2)
Be forwarned, though, that even WindowsUpdate [microsoft.com] doesn't list ALL of the patches that are out.
Openoffice scripting ? (Score:2, Interesting)
It may not be as bad on Linux/Unix because of the user processes not getting access privilages to do anything nsty, but OpenOffice has a windows version as well.
If there is a sizable installed base of OpenOffice , then maybe you can imagine OpenOffice script worms doing annoying stuff with user files/mails.
And if your friendly Mozilla/Kmail/Evolution/PINE mail tool has the MIME type set to open with OpenOffice then it can spread the worm around.
Somebody tell the suits what this costs (Score:4, Informative)
IT has been trying to figure out how to fix the mail delays for a few months now with no progress, and I don't think they even care that it takes me so long to perform functions in the browser, but most of my work is done in web-based tools. MS has the world by the nuts, and they're milking us all!!! at least in my home I still have a choice.
Re:Somebody tell the suits what this costs (Score:2)
Virus scanner overhead (Score:2)
Of course I can. There used to be a time when a virus checker only had to care about accesses to .EXE, .COM and .DLL. If you disable the "scan all file types" feature nowadays, you're vulnerable to macro attacks, and of course to the brilliant feature that allows files with the .CMD and a slew of other extensions to have an MZ magic header and be treated as a binary.
Those are design problems, that a virus checker has no speedy workaround for. It has to treat every file as hostile.
I don't want to know how many of our virus infections have a user who "optimized" his virus checker as the root cause.
Re:Somebody tell the suits what this costs (Score:2)
Patch kills Keyboard? (Score:2)
I shut down extraneous programs, installed the new patches and several others from office.microsoft.com [microsoft.com]. After installing the patches it tells me I need to reboot, so I click on the happy little button. In the process of rebooting stuff starts to misbehave and hang. After killing several "not responding" processes, the computer does manage to shut itself down.
When it comes back on, I find that my keyboard is dead! Not only will the computer not accept keyboard input, but it appears like it has no power at all. The little Caps Lock, Num Lock, etc indicator lights are off and won't respond. Mouse and everything else appears to work fine. So now I shut down my computer entirely, unplug and replug the keyboard, and power it all back up. This time everything works with no problems.
Little freaky I must say. Never had anything quite like this happen before.
Is this quote from Symantec or Microsoft? (Score:2)
Somehow I suspect that line came from a Microsoft PR guy and not Symantec. After all, they know that any script kiddie will be able to easily exploit the hole once a single expert writes the script/program to generate or modify a XLS or PPT file that skirts the security checks. Even Microsoft should know this, but a PR guy's job is to gloss over how serious the problem really is.
My second favorite quote, immediately after it, reads:
TWO MONTHS!. I suppose Microsoft had their hands full with all these other worms/virii. Two months to respond to a major hole and write the patch is a great indication of how seriously (not!) Microsoft takes the security of their customers.
This is what I found most interesting... (Score:2, Interesting)
"The vulnerablity was first brought to Microsoft's notice about two months ago by Symantec."
Microsoft has known about this vulnerability and has taken two full months to warn users? Disturbing, if not surprising.
user override (Score:2)
Last time i checked, most worms were also executed manually by dimwit users...
Re:Suits? No. Teachers? Yes. (Score:3, Insightful)
rules was not to use slides at all
unless you really need them.
You simply don't need a slide that says we sold
100 000 units if you can just tell them.
Powerpoint - like a lot of modern software -
reverses this rule by making th euser subordinate to
the software.
Re:Suits? No. Teachers? Yes. (Score:2, Insightful)
> I did a presentation skills course. One of the rules was not to use slides at all unless you really need them. You simply don't need a slide that says we sold 100 000 units if you can just tell them.
I disagree. Some people absorb what they hear better than they absorb what they see, but for others it is just the opposite.
> Powerpoint - like a lot of modern software - reverses this rule by making the user subordinate to the software.
Yes. In particular, PP tempts presenters to add piles of useless and distracting bells and whistles to their presentations, with the result that the audience's comprehension goes down.
Comes to mind the story from last(?) year, where the Pentagon cracked down on presentations because all the audio files for machinegun fire in the background of PP presentations was eating up all their disk space. I have difficulty imagining any presentation that would be helped by the sound of machinegun fire.
However, the problem is not so much PowerPoint, but rather the stupidity of the average PP user.
Re:Suits? No. Teachers? Yes. (Score:2)
I have been to many presentations that would have been improved were I there with an actual machine gun, making noises with it.
Re:Suits? No. Teachers? Yes. (Score:2)
You are obviously an infidel who does not worship at the Holy Shrine of Charts and Graphs. Heathen.
Re:Suits? No. Teachers? Yes. (Score:2, Offtopic)
We didn't need no friggin PowerPoint presentations. I wouldn't want to view a presentation that doesn't have that distinctive purple ink smell.
Re:Suits? No. Teachers? Yes. (Score:2)
Re:Star Office + linux (Score:3)
Not to burst your bubble, but don't forget that Redhat (and many other linux distributions) install with numerous remote root holes. The solution problem is not germane to Microsoft. (You might successfully argue it is a result of poor administration, though.)
Ummm... yeah (Score:2, Insightful)
As for the lack of linux articles, i think i disagree [slashdot.org].
Re:Moron? (Score:2)
Not Moron - They also want you to upgrade (Score:2)
Many people may have held off upgrading because Office 97 does everything they need. MS states in their bulleting that Office 97 is an unsupported product. So to get "support" for any fixes to this bug, they must buy Office XP now. (and then download the patch.)
97 is Unsupported?!?!? (Score:2)
People put up with that crap?
OK... Here goes...
<LOUD> Listen here! Open Office is FREE. It probably does what you need. You don't need to break the law to use it at home. It does not currently have any of the virus problems that Office does. </LOUD>
Office 97 seemed like a pretty good product, once you installed it on a machine a couple generations later that a current PC at the time of release.
Personally, I'd be happy with Word 6. That was a good release, still-compatable file formats, nearly universal readability.
Open Office is a nice package that exceeds my modest needs. After having used it a bit, there is no way I'd even consider installing Office XP or whatever it is.
Sometimes, I just don't *get* people...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
Service Pack (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it was planned.   I think they rush to market on every release.   I believe it to be the company's modus operandi - get it out the door, fix the problems in a Service Pack.
Service Pack.   There's an awesome piece of marketing.   Microsoft calls 'patches' 'Service Packs' and averts contaminating the perception of The Product.   A patch is something you apply to something that's broken.   A 'Service Pack' is like getting something extra.   Genius.
It all seems so obvious.   Microsoft wanted to offer complete connectivity between products.   And they did.   And they rushed it to market without realizing how all this inter-process functionality could be exploited.   I'm sure it was the furthest thing from their minds - "Why would anyone want to use The Product to do anything bad?   We're just trying to provide solutions.  Why the hell are people using our 'Solutions' to cause problems?"
Spoing!
MjM
Re:BOD? (Score:2)
Bored Sick Of Directors