Software Engineering Institute

Microsoft Office fails to properly handle malformed drawing objects embedded within Office documents. By convincing a user to open a specially crafted Office document, an attacker may be able to corrupt memory in a way that could allow them to execute arbitrary code.

More information on this vulnerability is available in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS07-025.

remote, unauthenticated attacker may be able to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the Office application. If the user is logged in with administrative privileges, the attacker could take complete control of a vulnerable system

Apply an update

This vulnerability is addressed by the updates included with Microsoft Security Bulletin MS07-025.

Do not open untrusted Office documents

Do not open unfamiliar or unexpected Office documents, particularly those hosted on web sites or delivered as email attachments. Please see Cyber Security Tip ST04-010.

Do not rely on file name extension filtering

In most cases, Windows will call the appropriate Office application to open a document even if the document has an unknown file extension. For example, if document.qwer contains the correct file header information for Word, Windows will open document.qwer with Word. Filtering for common extensions (e.g., .doc, and .dot) will not detect all Office documents.

Disable automatic opening of Microsoft Office documents

By default, Microsoft Office 97 and Microsoft Office 2000 will configure Internet Explorer to automatically open Microsoft Office documents. This feature can be disabled by using the Office Document Open Confirmation Tool. Mozilla Firefox users should disable automatic opening of files, as specified in the Securing Your Web Browser document.