Word for Mac Exploit in the Wild

Symantec is warning about a new security exploit making the rounds that takes advantage of a flaw in Office 2004 for Mac. A maliciously crafted Word file could lead to malware and rootkits being installed on a vulnerable system, including Windows PCs running older versions of Office. The issue was patched on Tuesday by Microsoft.

"It seems that the trend for exploiting vulnerabilities around the same time as Patch Tuesday continues. Microsoft themselves confirm in their advisory that they have seen this issue exploited in the wild," Symantec said in a blog posting. "The good news is that the default configuration in Microsoft Office 2007 and Office 2003, Service Pack 3 will not allow you to open some older Office file formats, including Office for Macintosh documents."