MS acknowledges Office 2008 flaw, promises fix

Microsoft has acknowledged a security flaw in its recently released Office 2008 suite and has promised an update to fix the issue. The installer flaw, reported earlier this week, incorrectly grants ownership of the files to a particular local user as it installs them, allowing a second local user -- without administrative access -- to modify the Office 2008 install. According to the company, the issue, however, does not expose the Office 2008 install to modifications by any networked user account or to any local account other than the second one created on your Mac. The Mac BU says that it is working on an update to Office 2008 that will automatically fix the file ownership (will be made available via Microsoft's AutoUpdate tool and via a web download), but offered a set of terminal commands users can run to repair the issue if the suite has already been installed.

Filed under: security, software
Other story tags: Microsoft, Office 2008, Mac BU

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Feathers

why...?

01/27, 8:44am, EST

It's not like the MacBU are new to the permissions issue, so the real question is why they did it or what they were thinking in the first case? Probably an increased level of anti-piracy providing the application or other (hidden) application with the ability to write directly to itself? Sneaky?

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dimmer

Probably not deliberate

01/27, 5:47pm, EST

More likely just not a good QA on the install process. If MS wanted to be intentionally sneaky, I'm sure they'd have done a (somewhat) better job of it.

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testudo

Re: why?

01/28, 8:23am, EST

Keep in mind this is the first time they've used the MacOS installer, vs. their own. Probably didn't know what they were doing.

Also, Apple and other companies have had installer issues in the past.

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