Microsoft Patches All Components In Office 2011 For Mac
Microsoft Corp. Today explained why it has not patched older versions of its Office for Mac, but would not disclose a release schedule for doing so. “We cannot give an exact date, but we expect to provide these updates during one of our normal monthly update cycles very soon,” said Jerry Bryant, a group manager in the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC). Bryant was responding to questions raised Tuesday when for all versions of Office on Windows, including Office XP, 2003, 2007 and 2010, and Office for Mac 2011. However, Microsoft did not deliver patches for the vulnerabilities in Office for Mac 2004 and Office for Mac 2008.
“The updates for Mac Office 2004 and 2008 were not ready for broad distribution at the same time as the updates for the affected products used by the vast majority of our customers,” said Bryant in an e-mail reply to Computerworld queries. The majority of Office users run the Windows editions of the suite, which greatly outsells the same software for Mac OS X.
According to the security bulletin associated with the Office updates, Office 2007 and Office 2010 users are most at risk because attackers can hijack their machines simply by getting them to view a specially-crafted message in the Outlook preview pane. In a second e-mail Wednesday, Bryant said that Office for Mac users were not vulnerable to the same types of attacks, although hackers could try to dupe them into opening malicious RTF (rich text format) documents attached to e-mail messages. Microsoft has delayed security updates for the Mac version of Office before. In May 2009, Microsoft shipped patches for the Windows version of PowerPoint — Office’s presentation maker — but delayed fixes for the same flaws in its Mac software until the following month. At the time, Microsoft’s security team defended the decision by saying that fixes for Windows were finished, but were still being tested on the Mac.
Today, Bryant said it was a matter of priorities, both in the number of users running Windows software compared to the Mac, and in the threat posed to each group. “Normally, we release updates for all affected products at the same time, but in cases where the vast majority of our customers are at potential risk and we can provide protections, we may decide to release updates for those products, if ready, ahead of products where the risk is very low,” he said. Last year, over the PowerPoint patch delay, with one security expert saying it put Mac users at risk. Others agreed with Microsoft’s decision at the time. Today, HD Moore, the chief security officer at Rapid7 — and the creator of the popular Metasploit penetration toolkit — dissed Microsoft’s decision, up to a point.
“It’s a bit surprising because on one hand they’re giving away the key,” he said. “The information in Microsoft’s security bulletins isn’t remotely useful to researchers, but now they’re free, since Microsoft has officially patched the vulnerabilities in Windows and Office for Mac 2011, to disclose technical information to the public.” On the other hand, said Moore, it’s unlikely that anyone will take the patched Office for Mac 2011, then reverse engineer the fix to uncover the specific flaws in Office for Mac 2004 or 2008.
“It’s a pain in the ass to reverse engineer Office,” said Moore, talking about the process often used by researchers, both legitimate and criminal, to figure out how to exploit a vulnerability Unlike a typical patch for Windows, which may reside in just a single revamped DLL, or dynamic link library, fixes for Office are included in a massive, recompiled executable, or EXE file. “There could be 30,000 changes in that EXE,” said Moore. And it’s not as if Mac owners aren’t used to being treated as second-class citizens when it comes to patches, Moore added. ” has been doing this for years,” he said. “It often takes Apple months to update components in Mac OS X, such as Samba, after they’ve been patched, even when exploits have been released.” Related Download Sponsor: BlackBerry.
Microsoft Office 2011 14.6.3 Patches Serious Office for Mac Flaws Posted on April 13th, 2016 by Microsoft has released Office 2011 14.6.3, in addition to security updates for Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac, to remedy serious security flaws that “allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Office file.” These updates include fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your Mac's memory with malicious code. The software updates address vulnerabilities that affect Microsoft Word for Mac 2011 and Microsoft Word 2016 for Mac. For a complete list of affected versions of Microsoft software, you can visit the related MS support page. The Office for Mac vulnerabilities patched with these updates are described as follows: In Office for Mac 2011 Microsoft Office Memory Corruption Vulnerability –: Microsoft Excel 2010 SP2, Word for Mac 2011, and Excel Viewer allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted Office document. In Office for Mac 2016 Microsoft Office Memory Corruption Vulnerability –: Microsoft Excel 2007 SP3, Excel 2010 SP2, Excel 2013 SP1, Excel 2013 RT SP1, Excel 2016, Word 2016 for Mac, Office Compatibility Pack SP3, and Excel Viewer allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted Office document.
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Microsoft addressed the vulnerabilities by correcting how Office handles objects in memory. According to Microsoft’s security bulletin , the above vulnerabilities exist in its software “when the Office software fails to properly hand objects in memory.” While no exploit exists in the wild for the patched flaws, the company clarified what could happen if successfully exploited, saying: An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerabilities could run arbitrary code in the context of the current user.
If the current user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker could take control of the affected system, and then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. Microsoft also outlined the scenarios in which an attacker could exploit the flaws: Exploitation of the vulnerabilities requires that a user open a specially crafted file with an affected version of Microsoft Office software. In an email attack scenario an attacker could exploit the vulnerabilities by sending the specially crafted file to the user and convincing the user to open the file. In a web-based attack scenario an attacker could host a website (or leverage a compromised website that accepts or hosts user-provided content) that contains a specially crafted file that is designed to exploit the vulnerabilities. An attacker would have no way to force users to visit the website. Instead, an attacker would have to convince users to click a link, typically by way of an enticement in an email or Instant Messenger message, and then convince them to open the specially crafted file.
Microsoft Office For Mac
Office for Mac 2011 users should install the update as soon as possible. Mac users can update your software by using Microsoft’s AutoUpdate application, or by visiting the Microsoft Download Center to download and install (113.4 MB). Office 2016 for Mac users can get the updates by using Microsoft AutoUpdate. To do this, open a Microsoft Office program, and then click Check for Updates on the Help menu. The updates are also available from the.
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