Latest Microsoft Office news

qkG Ransomware Encrypts Only Word Documents, Hides and Spreads via Macros

Security researchers have discovered a new ransomware strain named qkG that targets only Office documents for encryption and infects the Word default document template to propagate to new Word documents opened through the same Office suite on the same computer.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- November 22, 2017
- 09:22 AM
- 0
Microsoft Appears to Have Lost the Source Code of an Office Component

The way Microsoft patched a recent security bug has made several security and software experts believe the company might have lost the source code to one of its Office components.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- November 18, 2017
- 04:05 PM
- 3
Office Equation Editor Security Bug Runs Malicious Code Without User Interaction

Microsoft has patched today a huge security hole in Microsoft Office that could be exploited to run malicious code without user interaction on all Windows versions released in the past 17 years.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- November 14, 2017
- 08:12 PM
- 5
Microsoft Office Attack Runs Malware Without Needing Macros

Malware authors don't necessarily need to trick users to enable macros to run malicious code. An alternative technique exists, one that takes advantage of another legitimate Office feature.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- October 12, 2017
- 06:45 AM
- 6
Devilishly Clever KnockKnock Attack Tries to Break Into System Email Accounts

Security researchers have spotted a new type of low-and-slow brute-force attack — which they nicknamed KnockKnock — aimed at companies with Office 365 accounts.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- October 09, 2017
- 09:25 AM
- 2
Office Exploit Gets New Life With PowerPoint Variation

Over the past few months, an Office vulnerability has become one of the most popular and efficient ways of delivering malware to vulnerable computers.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- August 15, 2017
- 04:25 AM
- 0
Microsoft to Bundle Office With Windows Into New "Microsoft 365" Service

Today at the company's Inspire business conference, Microsoft announced a new service called "Microsoft 365" that bundles together three of its previous standalone services: Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- July 10, 2017
- 06:10 PM
- 1
PowerPoint File Downloads Malware When You Hover a Link, No Macros Required

Security researchers have spotted a booby-trapped PowerPoint file that will download malware to a computer whenever a victim hovers a link, no macro scripts required.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- June 02, 2017
- 12:40 PM
- 0
3 of 4 Zero-Days Microsoft Patched Yesterday Were Used by Russian Cyberspies

Microsoft's May 2017 Patch Tuesday, released yesterday, included fixes for three zero-days, which according to ESET and FireEye, were used by cyber-espionage groups operating out of Russia.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- May 10, 2017
- 05:08 AM
- 0
WikiLeaks Publishes CIA Anti-Whistleblowers Tool for Microsoft Office Documents

Today, WikiLeaks continued its "Vault 7" campaign by dumping another set of CIA files, but this time around, the organization also included the tool's source code, something they have not leaked in previous data dumps.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- April 28, 2017
- 11:45 AM
- 0
Microsoft Removing Standalone Office Features to Force Users Towards Office 365

Microsoft announced last week that starting October 13, 2020, customers who purchased a copy of a standalone Office product — such as Office 2010, Office 2013, and Office 2016 — will have their access revoked to Skype for Business and OneDrive for Business accounts.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- April 23, 2017
- 06:10 AM
- 6
Microsoft Sets New Release Schedule for Windows 10 with Two Major Updates per Year

Today, Microsoft pledged itself to a new release schedule for Windows 10, for which the Redmond company promises to release all major features during two update periods, one in March and one in September, each year.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- April 20, 2017
- 06:05 PM
- 4
Recent Microsoft 0-Day Used for Cyber-Espionage and Mundane Malware Distribution

The saga of CVE-2017-0199, a recently patched zero-day vulnerability affecting Microsoft Office and WordPad, just got a little stranger yesterday after cyber-security firm FireEye revealed the vulnerability was used by both cyber-criminals pushing mundane malware, and also by state-sponsored cyber-espionage groups.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- April 13, 2017
- 06:20 AM
- 0
Microsoft Office Zero-Day Used to Push Dridex Banking Trojan

The operators of the Dridex botnet are using the recently disclosed Microsoft Office zero-day to spread a version of their malware, the infamous Dridex banking trojan.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- April 11, 2017
- 03:33 AM
- 2
Attacks Detected with New Microsoft Office Zero-Day

Cyber-security firms McAfee and FireEye have both disclosed in-the-wild attacks with a new Microsoft Office zero-day that allows attackers to silently execute code on targeted machines and secretly install malware.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- April 08, 2017
- 06:10 PM
- 0
Word Document Spreads Macro Malware Targeting Both Windows and macOS

After last month security researchers discovered the first-ever Word document spreading macro malware on macOS, last week, researchers from Fortinet spotted a Word document that contained macro scripts that distributed both Windows and macOS malware at the same time, depending on the OS it managed to infect.
- Catalin Cimpanu
- March 23, 2017
- 06:15 AM
- 0