Hackers Expoliting Zero-Day Excel Vulnerability
Category: Bugs / VirusPosted: February 24, 2009 05:22PM
Author: Nemo
Security researchers are reporting they are beginning to see attacks making use of an unpatched flaw in Microsoft Excel. The flaw affects all supported version of Excel including Excel 200, 2002, 2003 and 2007 on Windows and Mac OS X Excel 2004 and 2008 versions. The attack has so far been limited to parts of Asia, although with the code now having gone public, experts fear the number of attacks are sure to increase. The attacks so far have been limited to specific targets at government offices and a few high-profile corporations according to Symantec's security response group. The attack involves delivering a downloader Trojan to the targeted machines which, in turn, is used to download and install more malware. Microsoft has issued a security advisory and said it is working on a patch. Until then the workaround involves editing the registry to prevent Excel files from opening.
