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Third Microsoft Word Code Execution Exploit Posted
gregleimbeck writes "Exploit code for a third, unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft Word has been posted on the Internet, adding to the software maker's struggles to keep up with gaping holes in its popular word processing program.
The attack code, available at Milw0rm.com, contains sample Word documents that have been rigged to launch code execution exploits when the file is opened."
The gdb backtrace shows that the crash occurs in SwIoSystem::IsFileFilter (). EIP may not have been overwritten; the value points into what appears to be a valid function (i.e. not the stack or heap):
eip 0xb7286b4d 0xb7286b4d osl_getVolumeInformation+4487
Of course, this is probably because the exploit was designed to crash MS Word in the first place, not execute arbitrary code.
Ads? What ads?
I tried switching my dad to Open Office when we couldn't find the MS Office CD - he immediately complained that the small fonts he was using in his spreadsheets (less than 8 points) didn't render nicely in OO compared to Excel, so he went and bought a copy of Office 2003.
Little things like that count for a lot. OO might be more secure than MS Office, but it's terrible quality software in user-visible ways (i.e. it's ugly, slow and bloated). These things count to people. Little problems can't just be overlooked because it's free. My dad could pick it apart within minutes, and he doesn't normally care about software at all. He didn't care about paying for Office either, in fact he didn't think twice about it.
That's why. Nothing to do with TCO, Microsoft being evil, security, monopoly or anything else. OpenOffice just isn't very good in the ways that count to regular users.
If you knew enough to download it for him you should have known enough to turn on antialiasing for font sizes 8 and lower in the options menu.
And if you knew end-users enough to comment on them, you should have known enough that end-users won't know how to turn this on.
See, software shouldn't "get in the way" of what you're trying to do.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
...imagine what could be done with 10k of executable code
Run Visicalc?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
This goes under the category of basic internet security. Don't open files from people you don't know. And if you do get a wierd file from someone you don't know stop and think for 10 seconds about it before you open it. Or, buy a mac.
But seriously, why would anyone use anything M$ when there are non-stop bugs and security holes. Open Office / Google Writely anyone?
(Insert random application name here) with vulnerability running as root is the problem. MS Word hole only amplifies it because it's widely used. But the problem is that everyone and their dog is running Windows as administrator.
Uh if that happens then the language used is obviously unsafe.
The language isn't "unsafe" - it just lets you do some very, very nifty stuff that noobtard programmers are better off leaving alone.
C++ has perfectly "safe" features - the Standard Template Library has container classes like strings and vectors that won't overflow no matter how careless you are.
For those who insist on going down to the byte level and concatenating their strings themselves, Microsoft included "safe" versions of these functions in Visual Studio 2005, and will compile with warnings if you use the dangerous, buffer-overrun-producing variants.
Why should potentially arbitrary code be executed because a program tries to put data somewhere it won't fit?
Because a hacker's input and a programmer's overconfidence in his manual input validation (or lack thereof) put the hacker's code over the program itself. It fit just fine where the still-running program used to be.
This can happen in any language - C++ programmers are simply notoriously bad at input validation.
DATABASE WOW WOW
"Data used by Microsoft Word to construct a destination address for a memory copy routine is embedded within a Word document itself."
If this is a standard practice at Microsoft, I'm beginning to understand why they are so relunctant to publish their protocols and standards.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc