Microsoft Corp, the world's biggest software maker, said critical flaws in its Office program package make users vulnerable to data theft and vandalism via the Internet.
An infiltrator can use e-mail or Web pages to issue commands to read, delete or alter data on a computer, Christopher Budd, Microsoft's security program manager, said in an e-mail. The weakness also exists in Microsoft's Money program and five products that run on computer servers.
Microsoft is encouraging users to download a software patch from its Web site to fix the problem.
Exploiting the flaw "is fairly easy for someone to do," said Oliver Friedrichs, senior manager of engineering at antivirus firm Symantec Corp. He said security professionals and hackers have known about the defect since early April.
Microsoft Office, which includes programs for word processing and spread sheets, is the most popular software package of its type, according to research firm Gartner Inc. Office, which competes against Sun Microsystems Inc's StarOffice, is so dominant that Gartner analyst Simon Hayward said he doesn't track exact market share.
Budd couldn't estimate the number of customers at risk. He and Friedrichs said they didn't know of any instances in which the security flaw had been exploited by a vandal. Microsoft in past fiscal year generated US$9.54 billion, or 38 percent, of its revenue from sales of Office and other personal-computer programs, the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Last year's Code Red worm and other security lapses in Microsoft products shut down e-mail systems and Web sites, leading critics to call the company's software unsafe.
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