Software Engineering Institute

Microsoft Word 2000 fails to properly handle malformed records leading to memory corruption. For more information refer to Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-060.

Note that we have received reports that this vulnerability is actively being exploited.

By convincing a user to open a specially crafted Word document, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running Word 2000. If the user is logged in with administrative privileges, the attacker could take complete control of a vulnerable system.

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This vulnerability is addressed in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-060.

Do not open untrusted Word documents

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

Do not rely on file name extension filtering

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