[ISN] 'Critical' patch sent out for Office flaw

From: InfoSec News (isn@private)
Date: Thu Nov 06 2003 - 01:21:52 PST

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    http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5103267.html
    
    By David Becker 
    Staff Writer, CNET News.com
    November 5, 2003
    
    Microsoft issued the first major patch for the new version of its
    Office software, fixing a flaw that could result in lost work.
    
    The "critical update," released late on Tuesday, applies to three of
    the four major applications in Office 2003--the Word word-processing
    program, the PowerPoint presentation application and the Excel
    spreadsheet software, according to a Microsoft bulletin.
    
    The problem happens when a document created with one of those
    applications is opened with an earlier version of Office. If the
    document contains graphics elements created using the OfficeArt tool,
    the earlier version of Office will misinterpret that part of the
    document and add invalid data to the file when it is saved.
    
    An attempt to re-open the file with the Office 2003 application that
    created it could result in a corrupted document, missing content or
    other errors.
    
    Microsoft released Office 2003 late last month amid considerable
    fanfare. Unlike previous updates of the productivity software, which
    focused on new tools and features, the major changes in Office 2003
    are under the hood. Support for XML-based enterprise systems and Web
    services and new digital rights management features are positioned to
    turn Office into a broad platform for interacting with business data.
    
    Analysts have predicted that migration to Office 2003 will be slower
    than previous Office upgrades, partly because the new connections to
    corporate computing resources will make integration more of a
    challenge.
    
    
    
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