Microsoft finds Excel security hole

SOME older versions of the ubiquitous Microsoft Excel spreadsheet can be exploited by hackers to take control of people’s computers, Microsoft has warned in an official security bulletin.

The company said it had only very recently become aware of the issue and said at this stage the risk to users was “limited” because the malicious code was not in wide circulation.

“At this time, we are aware only of targeted attacks that attempt to use this vulnerability,” the company said in a scheduled Security Advisory said.

The company has not decided whether to issue a patch for the vulnerability.

“Microsoft is investigating the public reports and customer impact. Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to help protect our customers. This may include providing a security update through our monthly release process or providing an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft has continued to fill its most senior executive ranks with new blood from outside of the company announcing the appointment of a senior Disney executive as Microsoft chief information officer.

Tony Scott, who was a senior vice-president and CIO at Disney, will take charge of the Microsoft 4,000-person global information technology organisation that manages critical technology systems supporting the company’s worldwide sales, marketing and services efforts, as well as enterprise systems and applications for all corporate processes.

Mr Scott will officially assume the new role at Microsoft in February and report to Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner.

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Malware incidents double in 2007

EUROPEAN tech security specialist F-Secure has reported it has detected as many malware signatures during 2007 as it had in the entire preceding 20 years.

And the company is predicting a miserable 2008, with malware volumes continuing to increase as criminals successfully create a network-based underground ecosystem, trading malware development tools, skills, capabilities and resources.

F-Secure says in its 2007 Data Security Wrap-Up that it has identified a total about 500,000 malware signatures in its cumulative database – compared to 250,000 a year ago. The number of examples of malware had doubled in just one year.

“We've never seen as many samples arrive to our labs,” F-Secure Corporation Chief Research Officer Mikko Hypponen said.

“We would be unable to handle such huge samples loads if we would not have built a high degree of automation into our malware analysis systems over the past years,” he said.

The company said that while no truly new malware technologies were seen the existing ones were refined and adapted for much greater effectiveness.

Financial transactions remain a favorite target for network crime. The amount of phishing sites continues to increase, but as bank customers have become more aware of this threat the criminals have started employing more sophisticated techniques.

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