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Microsoft Word Forms Passwords Hacked

Posted by Cliff on from the back-to-the-drawing-board dept.

An anonymous reader notes: "SecurityFocus has published a hack that can be used to unlock Microsoft Word documents that have been password protected. The 'secure' file can easily be edited and the original password re-inserted, removing any trace of the modification. A ZDNet UK article says Dell uses password protected Word files to send quotes, which could make for a messy legal battle." This feature, known as 'Password to Modify', is not the password protection on the document itself, just the protection that restricts unauthorized editing of the file. This hack allows someone to download such a file, edit it, and restore the password...effectively allowing changes to the file to go potentially unnoticed.

48 of 438 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing New by digitalvengeance · · Score: 5, Informative

    There have been utilities to obtain Word passwords for quite a while. I've tested mine on Office 2000 and XP protected documents and had great success.

    What's odd: The password returned by my tool of choice is not the same as the one actually stored - but when I enter this new password OR the original password into Word, the document is successfully unprotected. Some sort of odd math that makes more than one password work?
    Example - I protected both a Word 2000 and Word 2002 document with the password "test" then ran them through my cracker. The cracker returned the password "QFQDOBCTGLHGEE" virtually instantly for both documents. Oddly enough, this new unusual password successfully unlocked both Word documents using Tools > Unprotect Document. Subsequent testing reveals that the original password will also unprotect the document.

    So, if such passwords can easily be bypassed anyway - what does this really change?

    I should note that I'm using a Passware product called Office Key.

    This crack just takes what has been commercially available for quite some time and moves it into the public arena.

    Josh

    --
    How many roads must a man walk down? 42.
    1. Re:Nothing New by Stavr0 · · Score: 5, Informative
      The word doc doesn't store the password, but a one-way checksum.

      The passware product merely computes a password that matches the checksum found in the word doc.

    2. Re:Nothing New by Violet+Null · · Score: 4, Informative

      Word probably uses a hash function to test the password (just like Linux doesn't store passwords, but hashes, in /etc/password). There's some function, you put the "password" in, it spits a hash out, and that is compared to the stored hash.

      Hashes are more secure than storing the password, because they tend to be pretty one way -- it's trivial to get a hash from a password, but much less trivial to get a password from the hash.

      However, hashes can collide; the smaller the hash returned, compared to the possible keyspace, the more likely this is. For instance, if I have a hash function that returns a one byte hash that I use to hash my password, then there is a 1/256 chance that _any_ gibberish I send in will return the same hash, and thus match.

      Microsoft is probably using a very small hash, and your "tool of choice" probably just brute forces the thing until it finds a match.

      If your tool of choice continued through the keyspace, it would inevitably come up with test, too.

    3. Re:Nothing New by pegr · · Score: 5, Interesting

      That's very interesting, but that's NOT what this article is about. This article describes how to modify "unmodifiable" fields. Here's the kick: Save the doc with "unmodifiable" fields as html and look at the source. There you will find a "key" in the metadata. Search for this key in the original doc with a hex editor. Zero it out, and voila, your fields are now modifiable.

      Again, this article is NOT about how to remove a password from the document itself. Such docs are truly encrypted. (How well is an exercise left for the reader! ;)

    4. Re:Nothing New by GoofyBoy · · Score: 4, Informative

      >Some sort of odd math that makes more than one password work?

      Really really simple dumbed down of an explination of what could be happening.

      I set the password to "011". Word takes the sum of the digits (0 + 1 + 1 = 2) and stored the result.

      When I want to unlock it Word takes the password I enter and sums the digits and sees if they match with the stored result from step 1. So "011" would work and so would "020" and "110".

      Of course it would be more complex math. Hope this gives you a bit understanding how it could happen.

      --
      The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
    5. Re:Nothing New by pegr · · Score: 4, Informative

      Word document password protection has always been a joke. It's total cake to bypass it.

      1. Open a new blank Word document.

      2. Insert the protected document into the new document using the Insert command. You will NOT be asked for the password.

      3. You now have the protected document, complete with formatting, content, etc., but with no password protection as your new document.

      Nope, not since Office 98. Since Office 98, password protected docs are truly encrypted. It does indeed ask you for the password when you insert it.

      And I just noticed that, in Office 2003 anyway, you can hit the "Advanced" tab and choose what kind of encryption you want (RSA, etc.), as well as bit length. Pretty cool!

    6. Re:Nothing New by pegr · · Score: 4, Informative

      OK, replying to your own post is lame, but here are the encryption types available under Word 2003:

      Weak Encryption (XOR)
      Office 97/2000 Compatible
      RC4, Microsost Base Cryptographic Provider
      RC4, Microsoft Base DSS and Diffie-Hellman Cryptographic Provider
      RC4, Microsoft DH SChannel Cryptographic Provider
      RC4, Microsoft Enhanced Cryptographic Provider v1.0
      RC4, Microsoft Enhanced DSS and Diffie-Hellman Cryptographic Provider
      RC4, Microsoft RSA SChannel Cryptographic Provider
      RC4, Microsoft Strong Cryptographic Provider

      I especially love the XOR encryption! (At least they call it weak...) For the other types, you can spec a bit length between 40 and 128 bits. Now I'm not sure what MS does to "enhance" these encryption types, but there it is, for what it's worth... (I wonder if Whitfield knows his name is contained within MS Word? ;)

    7. Re:Nothing New by Feyr · · Score: 3, Informative

      this hack doesn't even use brute force. they just found the bytes in the word file where the password is store.

      zero'ing those bytes with an hex editor allow you to modify the document password-free. you then replace the original hex in the bytes you modified to "reactivate" the protection.

    8. Re:Nothing New by saforrest · · Score: 4, Informative

      If they had used a real one-way function, such as MD5, it would not be possible to come up with another value that hashed to the same result.

      Uh, you're confusing two things.

      A one-way function is simply some function which is not one-to-one. For example, consider the length function L which maps words to integers, e.g. L("bob")=3, L("A")=1.

      It's not possible, given an integer n, to find the specific word that mapped to n, simply because there isn't an unique one. This is what makes it one-way.

      The fact that there are multiple possible passwords for this Word document is proof that it is a one-way function.

      What you're talking about is the ease of finding some element of the preimage of a given hash, which is a separate concept. MD5 is good because for some given value, it's really hard to find anything which hashes to that value, not because it's somehow 'more one-way'.

      In fact, the most one-way function of all is a constant function, which is obviously totally useless for authentication.

  2. An insecure Microsoft application?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Is this a dupe? I could swear I've read this one before.

  3. RTFA... It's hilarious by h4rm0ny · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to Microsoft, the password protection feature on Word is not intended to be secure, but should be regarded as a means to protect documents against accidental modification. I use Word and don't ever recall being advised of this, but then I suppose the EULA does warn users never to actually rely on the software for anything important.

    I never expected the protection in Word to be anything special, but sometimes (as shown here by Dell) it's better to have no security than false security because that way you take greater care.

    But for those of you who never RTA, here is what was the highlight for me:
    1.) Open a protected document in MS Word
    2.) Save as "Web Page (*.htm; *.html)", close Word
    3.) Open html-document in any Text-Editor
    4.) Search "" tag, the line reads something like that: ABCDEF01

    --

    Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
    1. Re:RTFA... It's hilarious by Kevin+Stevens · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The locks on these files are very similar to locks found on standard filing cabinets. They are there to prevent tampering, keeping people out of places they really shouldnt be- sensitive, but not absolutely secret stuff. Secure they are not. I have used these things before, and I can tell you, its pretty clear they are not using any heavy duty security. I do not see how anyone intelligent could really see them as otherwise. You dont have to read a EULA to realize there is no watermarking, no digitial signature, no complex scheme of any sort behind it. I put last year's tax records in a filing cabinet, but I wouldnt keep the deed to my house or my the account number to my secret account in the cayman's in there, I would buy a safe. Same concept here.

    2. Re:RTFA... It's hilarious by Skater · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Reminds me of an electrician I knew that always worked on wires live. That way, he claimed, he was certain to be careful.

      He was pretty old, too, so I guess it worked...

      --RJ

    3. Re:RTFA... It's hilarious by hikerhat · · Score: 3, Interesting
      The difference between computer security and meat space security is cost. A good physical lock costs much more than a lock on a standard file cabinet. We simply can't afford to put all our physical documents in safes. It is also obvious to most people that a flimsy file cabinet is much less secure that a safe.

      Computer security costs the same if you use some lame hack like MS is doing, or use real cryptography. The cost is nothing. Cryptography algorithms are freely available, and modern processors can handle the encryption without serious inconvenience to the user.

      And it is not obvious from looking at the interface to a program how secure it is. You enter a password either way. Most people, for better or worse, have an innate trust in computers and other people. If they have to enter a password they assume their data is secure. Programmers know that. If you supply software that asks for a password and you have no real security behind it you are committing fraud, if not by a legal definition then certainly by an ethical definition. Personally I believe developers should be required by law to provide scientifically sound security in any application that prompts a user for a password.

      I'll even bite on your little "most intelligent people" bit of trolling. Most intelligent people don't know what watermarking or digital signatures are, and it is not at all clear what application is secure and what is not. Most intelligent people have better things to do than dink around on computers and read about computer security. They hire people to do that for them or buy software that appears to do that for them. Unfortunately in this case the people they hired are lying scumbags and they purchased software from lying scumbags.

  4. What do you mean, that's too cheap? by Trillan · · Score: 5, Funny

    I swear, you guys gave me a quote of $6.35 for a new Latitude.

  5. Other Variants by skroz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If I recall, openoffice/staroffice can open "encrypted" Word and Excel documents without the requirement of a password. I know this used to work for older versions...

    --
    -- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
    1. Re:Other Variants by pegr · · Score: 3, Informative

      If I recall, openoffice/staroffice can open "encrypted" Word and Excel documents without the requirement of a password. I know this used to work for older versions...

      Not since Office 98...

  6. No messy Dell battle by MikeXpop · · Score: 4, Insightful
    This hack allows someone to download such a file, edit it, and restore the password...effectively allowing changes to the file to go potentially unnoticed.
    Basically meaning the submitters comments about Dell are wrong, as Dell wouldn't use that kind of protection.

    Come to think of it, I can't think of a real position where this could be a problem. What would someone do, host protected .doc's on a public server, and hope no one hacks into the server putting back the password-modified .doc? Anyone have a real world example?
    --
    Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
    1. Re:No messy Dell battle by vasqzr · · Score: 5, Informative


      Come to think of it, I can't think of a real position where this could be a problem. What would someone do, host protected .doc's on a public server, and hope no one hacks into the server putting back the password-modified .doc? Anyone have a real world example?

      You've obviously never been in the real world.

      To someone like your or I, Word is simply a word processing program. But, to office workers across the country....

      Here's a list of things I've seen people use MS Word for:

      Spreadsheet. Hit tab, enter a value, add them up by hand. Excel is 'too confusing'

      Creating GIANT tables and using them for inventory, rather than an Access database

      Creating a 3,000 page document and keeping time/attendance records for ~ 250 employees. And wonder why it takes 10 minutes to load, and 10 minutes to save, doesn't scroll right....

  7. DMCA anyone by Ubi_NL · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As SF.com is located in the US, isn't this exactly something covered under the DMCA: publishing a method to circumvent a protect mechanism.
    In that case, what are the chances of them getting into trouble?

    --

    If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
    1. Re:DMCA anyone by Chagatai · · Score: 3, Interesting
      As one of the previous posters mentioned, the password scheme, as described by Microsoft, is not designed to be a means of protection of data, but more of a way to deter users from accidentally modifying Word documents. I suppose the poor man's version of this would be the copy protect tab on a VHS tape. You could tape over it in order to record over something, but it prevents accidental modification.

      Ergo, if this password crack is constituted a breach of the DMCA, me taping over my neighbor's wedding and video of his kid's first steps with that weird Swedish adult channel I get on the dish must also be a violation of the DMCA, too. Stupid neighbor.

      --
      --Chag
  8. hehe by NeoGeo64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Another case of "if you build it I'll break it"

    Anything built by man can be cracked by man.

    DRM is useless bloatware.

  9. One Way function by nuggz · · Score: 4, Informative

    Passwords can use a one way function.
    Take the source string, do a bunch of 'stuff' to it, stuff that isn't easy to undo.
    You can throw out some data too.

    You end up with a new string, but since you threw out some information, you end up unable to reverse it.

    Even if you know the end result, and the formula, you can't guess the password. You'd have to brute force it.
    With slow computers, this was a very good obstacle. Now we use fancier algorithms, and it is still okay.

    I'm not a math guy, go read crypto books if you want the 'real' explanation

  10. Now way for such a thing to be secure by osgeek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Without some type of private/public digital signature system, you're going to see problems like this. Don't trust passwords on supposed read only documents as a general rule.

    The sooner business people understand these things, the sooner that we'll all see the benefits of a standardized, omnipresent public key infrastructure. Make sure to educate the nontechnical people in your office so that they demand better security for their data.

    --
    Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
  11. How dumb do you have to be? by p3d0 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    What kind of rank amateur would just put a hashed password in the file, and then rely on hostile software to obey that password? Good grief.

    The real solution is a digital signature. Anyone to whom that is not obvious shouldn't be putting security measures in commercial products.

    --
    Patrick Doyle
    I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
    1. Re:How dumb do you have to be? by Prof.+Pi · · Score: 4, Funny
      What kind of rank amateur would just put a hashed password in the file, and then rely on hostile software to obey that password?

      Probably someone who truly believes their software is so ubiquitous that there would be no such thing as "hostile software."

  12. And this is a good thing by Smack · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The fact that it can't determine your actual password is a good thing. Not for the security of that particular document, obviously, but for the security of other things you may have used the same password for.

    1. Re:And this is a good thing by cyb97 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well run the password checker long enough and it'll come up with several possibilities. If your main concern is that you've used the same password elsewhere, I guess any good blackhat will be able to spot which one you've used or spend enough time to try them all.

  13. The article is troll-ish by _RiZ_ · · Score: 5, Informative

    I work with Dell for our workstation and laptop purchases and not once in the last 3 years have they sent me a quote in a Word document.

    They have a system that links the quote with your customer ID and gets generated as an HTML file which gets emailed to you. All automagically.

    To whom ever that thought they could change a word document quote and expect to get that price, I got some beach front property to sell you in Kansas. Silly fool.

  14. And it was about that time... by pjwalen · · Score: 5, Funny

    that I noticed my customer was a 12 foot tall monster from the crustacious period! He looked me right in the eye and said, 'My quote for the dell says about Tree-Fitty!' and I said GOD DAMN YOU LOCHNESS MONSTER!

  15. Re:Oh, this bodes well. by zdislaw · · Score: 5, Informative
    I wondered exactly the same thing. For about three seconds. The I RTFA.

    2003-11-27, 10:30 UTC Microsoft notified to: secure microsoft com

    2003-11-27 confirmed receipt from: secure microsoft com

    2003-12-03 Note from Microsoft, Form protection "is not intended as a full-proof protection for tampering or spoofing, this is merely a functionality to prevent accidental changes of a document", request additional time to update Microsoft Knowledge Base article.
    Targetting beginning of January 2004 for release of this advisory.
    from: "Magnus"

    2003-12-08 Microsoft has already released the KB article (or added a warning to an existing article). Read the KB article at http://support.microsoft.com/?id=822924
    from: "Magnus"

    --
    bad sig...no donut.
  16. Just how far should they go? by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 3, Interesting

    OK, I'm not saying that Microsoft's totally without guilt here but just how far do people think they need to go with regards to securing passworded files? 48-bit encryption? 128-bit? 160-bit with triple DES? At what stage does the encryption become overkill?

    And what about the consequences of selling Office (or even emailing a file) around the world with such strong encryption? It wasn't that long ago that the 128-bit encryption version of Internet Explorer couldn't be downloaded by anyone outside the US (even people in countries such as the UK) because that key length was longer than US export laws allowed at that time. So where do you draw the line between too weak (to be of any use to anyone at all) and too strong (to be of use to anyone who needs to deal with anyone based outside the US)?

    --

    "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
    1. Re:Just how far should they go? by TwistedSquare · · Score: 4, Insightful
      It wasn't that long ago that the 128-bit encryption version of Internet Explorer couldn't be downloaded by anyone outside the US (even people in countries such as the UK) because that key length was longer than US export laws allowed at that time

      I saw a good point the other day that US export laws on cryptography were fairly stupid when you consider that other countries have the skills/intelligence to develop strong cryptography outside the US in the first place. For example, RSA was originally developed in the UK.

    2. Re: Just how far should they go? by Black+Parrot · · Score: 4, Insightful


      > OK, I'm not saying that Microsoft's totally without guilt here but just how far do people think they need to go with regards to securing passworded files? 48-bit encryption? 128-bit? 160-bit with triple DES? At what stage does the encryption become overkill?

      So long as we ride the Moore Curve, overkill degrades to underkill at a rate of about one bit per 18 months. So if you want your document to be secure in perpetuity, you'd better use a lot of bits.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    3. Re: Just how far should they go? by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

      So long as we ride the Moore Curve, overkill degrades to underkill at a rate of about one bit per 18 months. So if you want your document to be secure in perpetuity, you'd better use a lot of bits.

      Take something like 256 bits, which is quite commonly available, and you'll see that brute forcing it requires you to turn each atom on earth into a computer, and compute with each of the atoms of the earth (2^171 atoms) at 1 THz (2^40) for 1 million years (2^45) in order to brute force *one* key.

      Now, if that is too unsecure for you, I recommend you seek professional help. Fast.

      Kjella

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  17. Come on now... by Kevin+Stevens · · Score: 4, Informative

    Was this ever really meant to be really truly secure? "security" features like that have always been lame at best and equivalent to luggage locks. These passwords have always been susceptible to brute force attacks. Anyone really serious about keeping documents safe puts them into a source control program. There are many ways to pick at MS's security, this is not one of them. But if you are trusting these measures for really secure documents, I highly suggest you get your valuables out of the pink plastic safe you won at the county fair last year.

    1. Re:Come on now... by Kevin+Stevens · · Score: 3, Insightful

      its a dumb password scheme because it was meant to be a dumb password scheme. Its a simple one way hash. It is a document, a self contained, meant to be passed around entity. Even if they used some complex password scheme, it would still not be difficult to brute force it, and thus make it inherently insecure. So I bet they had a design meeting at some point and said, "hey, the customers want a feature to prevent snooping/tampering of docs, lets put a simple lock feature on them" knowing full well that it was not secure. Considering that a document is a passed around, meant to be distributed, entity without centralized tracking or control, it would be very difficult to put real security on them, and nowhere have I seen MS office targeted as the "secure way" to store data. A company using this for invoices and such is just plain crazy. Its like complaining about the insecurity of a soft top convertible. Or that the jack that came with your car wouldnt hold the weight of your friend's truck (I mean its a jack isnt it?, there is nothing on there that says it wont jack up a truck) You cant ever trust the client, ever. Thats a cardinal tenet of security. Thats why we have barcodes, and no longer just put little pricetag stickers on products and ring up whatever is on them. You also wouldnt trust the little tiny lock on a diary to hold the wild stories of your other life as a transexual gay man, at least not without hiding the thing damn well when your family is over to visit. Im getting offtopic here, but the point is, MS Word in no way shape or form tries to be a secure document system, and trusting your business or very secret information to it is just silly.
      sir, please read the fine post.

  18. The shame's in the design not the hack by dnoyeb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If the program claims that you can lock a document against modification, then shouldn't it provide verification of that? Or does it believe in its infallability.

    I know MS word includes signatures, why wouldn't a signature be an automatic feature on a locked document???

    shame.

  19. Messy by icemax · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This could become a very large legal problem for Word users that rely on this type of protection to (legally) prove that files have not been tampered with (think FDA submissions for pharmacuticals).
    I see this being a larger problem in the future, when MS Office DRM is used on most files assuming that these files will follow the orderes encoded into their DRM. Imagine a file that is supposed to self-destruct in 10 months as part of a document retention lifecycle. Two years from now, a tape backup of that file is subpoenad and the DRM is hacked so that the file is openable, leaving said company liable for its contents previously thought destroyed.
    I don't mean to rag on Microsoft or its protection schemes, more on those who use these weak means as a method of security in their infrastructure. A good server-based file protection model will always trump a good in-file-based protection model.

    --


    __________
    Love conquers all... except CANCER
  20. Cryptographic signing by Peaker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you don't want your document to be changed by others, why don't you crypto-sign it?

    Its not specific to any specific document format or type and requires no extra features/code on the behalf of every program. Ofcourse "Password-protecting yadda yadda yadda" sure sounds good on a feature list of a word processor, even if completely useless.

  21. Microsoft's response by Ben+Hutchings · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft pointed to this Knowledge Base article. Choice quote: "Not all features that are found on the Security tab are designed to help make your documents and files more secure."

  22. OpenOffice by tds67 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I would like to see this hack become a feature in OpenOffice.

  23. Re:OMG MICROSFT IS TEH SUCK by youngerpants · · Score: 3, Funny

    You're new here aren't you?

    Welcome to /.

  24. DRM in Office 2003 is unaffected by kylef · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First of all, if you read the article, you will understand that Microsoft has not been advertising these "Word document passwords" as true security mechanisms. Microsoft has been pushing its new DRM Features in Office 2003 as the Microsoft-approved method to secure Office documents.

    In fact, I doubt Microsoft really put much effort into making these document-modification passwords all that secure. They have been around for quite some time, and I doubt they have changed much or improved much over the years. I don't know anyone who was relying on these document passwords for their security, and Microsoft did not advertise this as a great feature of Word. In fact, the bug itself is limited in scope to protecting Word FORMS from being modified.

    In any case, the new DRM features in Office 2003 are much more sophisticated and will no doubt be much more difficult to crack. THESE are the security features that Microsoft is pushing today, and if you really want to lambast Microsoft Security, then you must point out a way to subvert these newer technologies that Microsoft is actually pushing.

    It would be very big news indeed if someone could succeed in copying an Outlook 2003 email marked with a "Do Not Forward" permissions flag. Indeed, if someone could even READ such an email on an unauthorized email client, Microsoft's newest security policies would be questionable. Until then, I'm not convinced this is anything more than FUD trying to convince people that Office is inherently insecure.

  25. Signed PDF by Qrlx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This came up at work. What happens if: You send out a contract as a Word doc email attachment. Customer changes the language of the contract, signs it, prints it, then mails it back. We could easily sign that without noticing the difference.

    We decided to send out digitally signed PDFs instead.

  26. Can't have it both ways by CaptainSuperBoy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm sure that some people here are laughing at Microsoft for its "lax security." Of course if you really wanted to protect a Word document you could use Office 2003's built-in encryption features, which rely on Windows Rights Management. Yet the people who criticize Microsoft for Word's "security hole" are also the most vocal opponents to anything having to do with trusted computing, including Windows Rights Management. You can't have it both ways, you know. You can either accept that Microsoft's WRM already has a solution to this issue, or you decide that the additional security that WRM provides isn't worth the imagined "privacy and freedom" implications. But don't say that MS should make their file formats more secure while at the same time dismissing WRM.

  27. the article was a joke by BubbleNOP · · Score: 3, Interesting
    This article is false. I just tried this in Word 2000 with a protected document. When I try to save it as HTML it brings up a dialog box saying that "some of the features in this document aren't supported by Web browsers" and "Password to unprotect document for tracked changes, comments and forms will be lost". In the resulting .html there is nothing about the password.

    Clearly the article was a joke. The Credits at the end of it give it away: "Magnus from the Microsoft Security Response Center for his fast responses and for showing a decent sense of humour. :-)"

  28. Word is insecure crap, anyway by Safety+Cap · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Woody's Office Watch had a good writeup (and followup) as to why you shouldn't use Word for anything sent out to the public. The problem he sites is that Word stores all kinds of things that you probably shouldn't disclose to just anyone, such as...
    1. Last document editor's name, initials, and company
    2. Computer name last edited on
    3. Path (incl server name) of last save (Remember all those hacks that require the miscreant to know specific file path & names?)
    4. Previous editor's names
    5. Number of revisions and versions
    6. Template name and path
    7. Any hidden text
    8. Comments
    This is why you distill DOC to PDF before passing it around or posting it on the web, so none of the aforementioned information is inadvertently released. Yes, someone can still change it, but that's what digital signatures are for.

    Side note: PDF Passwords ARE TRIVIAL to break. Don't try to protect your PDFs from printing/copying/etc. with the built-in "security." It takes about 15 seconds with publicly-available software to crack any PDF.

    --
    Yeah, right.