Microsoft late Friday warned users to be on the lookout for Excel files that arrive unexpectedly — even if they come from a co-worker's e-mail address.
In an advisory, Microsoft confirmed a new wave of limited "zero-day" attacks was underway, using a code execution flaw in its Microsoft Office desktop productivity suite. Although .xls files are currently being used to launch the spear phishing attacks, Microsoft said users of other Office applications (Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, etc.) are potentially at risk.
Confirmed vulnerable: Microsoft Office 2000, Microsoft Office XP, Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac, and Microsoft Office 2004 v. X for Mac.
The vulnerability cannot be exploited on Office 2007 or on Works 2004, 2005, or 2006.
This is the fourth known zero-day attack against the ever-present Microsoft Office suite since early December 2006. The three previous attacks, all aimed directly at specific targets, used rigged Microsoft Word .doc files.
Anti-virus vendor McAfee has issued an alert explaining the attack characteristics, which require than a specially crafted .xls file is opened:
* Unpack the XOR-encrypted shellcode in memory
* Load KERNEL32.DLL using a hardcoded address specific to Windows XP Service Pack 2. On other versions of Windows, Excel will simply crash.
* Create a new fiile in %Temp% op10.exe using API calls - GetTempPathA, and CreateFileA
* Seeks the opened file handle of the XLS file in memory using API call GetFileSize to match a specific filesize.
* Extract the payload from the XLS file and write it into %Temp% op10.exe
* Execute %Temp% op10.exe
Fedora Core 7 Test 1 has started appearing today on the mirrors worldwide, just as I am writing this:
Gels containing microbicides have been praised as the miracle weapon against catching HIV infection, as they could have been used by the women in the third world by themselves, without the man's agreement, to protect themselves against infection during the sexual act.
Creatine is an organic acid, found naturally in the body, where it helps supply energy to muscle cells, being commonly used as a popular nutritional supplement by body-builders and sprinters to improve muscular performance.
Some may not know who Kristanna is by name, but seeing her face certainly brings up memories of how she totally kicked Arnold Schwarzenegger's ass in 'Terminator 3: Rise of
Usually, when creating an account you will have to provide a user name and a password. I say “usually” as sometimes these are generated automatically and sent to you. Most users choose a regular ID (username), something representative (in the case of automatically generated IDs, it will usually be your email address).
Creating a weak password is easy, as you can choose any word you want. Browsing over the Internet I learned that a six characters password is only OK, which in my opinion means it is fallible. A ten characters pass key is considered to be good by the majority, while a 15 characters long countersign is unanimously considered to be the best (at 14 characters and less Windows passwords are scrambled as hashes and stored in hidden Windows system files, but Windows will not store hashed passwords of 15 or longer characters). Even Microsoft acknowledges that a 15-character password with only random letters and numbers is 33,000 times stronger then an 8 characters pass with elements from the entire keyboard.
By following the above mentioned strategy and replacing the letters with other characters I should now get “$0FtP3D!@”. It looks good and the effects of the changes brought my password to strong a level of security. And to get it to best security level all I have to do is add “eez#1”. This way, I have turned a phrase (“Softpedia is number one”) into a very hard to crack password (“$0FtP3D!@eez#1”). There are 14 characters, but by adding spaces between the words, you can ensure it not to be hashed and deposited in Windows hidden system folders.
Living in couple means investing your genes in just one variant, and, like a gambling, he/she may be the best, right, not right or the worst.
The hyena jumped like it would have been
The solitary gibbons do not pass the retirement age, as they won’t be able to defend and feed themselves.
A team at the University of North Carolina has proposed a new theory that shows the universe can endlessly expand and contract, contradicting the Big Bang theories and responding to a thorny modern physics problem.
