Hi 'MUGites, If you run Microsoft Word beware of opening unsourced Word documents. A new attack targeting Mac users relies on them opening a Word document that exploits a flaw in MS Word to install a trojan on their machine.
Here is the summary for a news aggregator site that I follow: "Welcome to the age of targeted attacks, Mac users. Perhaps having grown tired of owning Windows machines around the world for the last few years, attackers have now taken up the challenge of going after Macs with the same kind of targeted attack tactics that have served them so well in the Windows world. Researchers have found a new attack that employs two separate pieces of malware, a malicious Word document and some techniques for maintaining persistence on compromised machines, and the campaign is specifically targeted at Mac users. The command-and-control domain involved in the attack is located in China and the attack exploits a three-year-old vulnerability in the way that Office for Mac handles certain Word files, according to researchers at AlienVault, who discovered and analyzed the attacks." and here are the two articles linked in the summary: https://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/maccontrol-trojan-being-used-targeted-attacks-against-os-x-users-032812 http://labs.alienvault.com/labs/index.php/2012/ms-office-exploit-that-targets-macos-x-seen-in-the-wild-delivers-mac-control-rat/ The articles do not say if the vulnerability has been patched in later version of MS Word. Cheers, Carlo -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>
