Viruses/Worms News

Microsoft Word flaw exploited by Chinese cyberattackers

Friday, April 24, 2009

Researchers from a Vietnamese network security firm have reported that hackers based in China have begun to exploit unpatched flaws in Microsoft Word to take control of PCs, according to Computerworld.com.

The researchers said rigged Word documents circulating as email attachments exploit one of the eight Word flaws fixed by Microsoft's December 2008 patch package. Vulnerable programs include Word 2000, 2003 and 2007 for Windows and Word 2004 and 2008 for the Mac, which were fixed by the December update.

When a use opens the corrupted .doc attachment, the attack code executes successfully on machines with an unpatched copy of Word 2003. The malware uploads a Trojan on the user's PC for stealing information, Computerworld reported.

The researchers said evidence points to Chinese hackers being responsible for the attacks - the malware is connected to a server with the domain name registered in China and the malicious emails have a Chinese charset, reported Computerworld.

Security experts have grown increasingly worried about the threat from Chinese hackers, who are suspected of recent attacks on U.S. Department of Defense networks.