http://www.darkreading.com/security/attacks/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216402732 

By Kelly Jackson Higgins
DarkReading
April 03, 2009 

Microsoft's PowerPoint application is being used in a new attack that 
exploits an unpatched vulnerability in the popular Office app. The 
software giant yesterday issued a security alert confirming "limited and 
targeted attacks" were under way using malicious PowerPoint files that 
exploit the flaw.

The exploits carry a Trojan, according to Microsoft, and in an 
interesting twist, the exploit files were recently submitted to the 
VirusTotal free malware-scanning site. "Either the miscreants who 
created these exploits were looking to see how antivirus products detect 
their new files, or the victims were looking to get some information 
about their maliciousness," blogged Cristian Craioveanu and Ziv Mador of 
Microsoft's Malware Protection Center.

When exploited, the vulnerability can give an attacker local rights to a 
user's machine if he opens the malicious PowerPoint file, which is 
currently being delivered via targeted email messages, but can also be 
pushed via a Website or instant messaging link.

The vulnerability affects PowerPoint 2000 Service Pack 3, PowerPoint 
2002 Service Pack 3, PowerPoint 2003 Service Pack 3, and Microsoft 
Office 2004 for Mac . The newer Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 and 
Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 are immune.

[...]


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