****************************************************************************** ------ ----- ----- --- ----- | ----- ---- | | | | | |--- | | | | | | | | | |-- | | | | |-- | | | | | | | | \ | | ----- ---- ----- ----- | \ ----- A D V I S O R Y FA-98.68 ****************************************************************************** Topic: Microsoft Office 98 Security Vulnerability Source: CIAC Creation Date: July 21, 1998 Last Updated: To aid in the wide distribution of essential security information, FedCIRC is forwarding the following information from CIAC bulletin I-075. FedCIRC urges you to act on this information as soon as possible. If you have any questions, please contact FedCIRC: Telephone: +1 888 282 0870 Email: fedcirc@fedcirc.gov =======================FORWARDED TEXT STARTS HERE============================ [ For Public Release ] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- __________________________________________________________ The U.S. Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability ___ __ __ _ ___ / | /_\ / \___ __|__ / \ \___ __________________________________________________________ INFORMATION BULLETIN Microsoft Office 98 Security Vulnerability July 21, 1998 21:00 GMT Number I-075 ______________________________________________________________________________ PROBLEM: A vulnerability has been identified in Microsoft Office 98 applications running on Macintosh systems. The same vulnerability was identified in Microsoft Office 95 and Microsoft Windows 95 in January, 1996. PLATFORM: All Macintosh platforms using Microsoft Office 98 applications running all versions of Mac OS. All unpatched PCs with Microsoft Office 95 applications running Windows 95. DAMAGE: Documents generated using Microsoft Office applications may contain hidden data from previous files. Private information may be revealed to a recipient of the document without the knowledge of the sender. This vulnerability may pose security and privacy concerns. SOLUTION: Apply the patch indicated below. ______________________________________________________________________________ VULNERABILITY This vulnerability has been highly publicized, therefore CIAC ASSESSMENT: recommends that you take the appropriate action as soon as possible. Systems with sensitive unclassified or classified information should apply the patch immediately. ______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC has been informed of a security problem with Microsoft Office 98 documents on the Macintosh platform. The problem was first identified in Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows 95 in January, 1996. Microsoft issued a patch for that particular platform shortly after its discovery. Windows NT with NTFS file systems are not vulnerable to this security problem. The vulnerability originates from the way Microsoft Windows 95 and the Mac OS handle deleted files. When a document is saved it becomes a file and the file is allocated space in a sector on the disk. Like many other Operating Systems (OS), the Mac OS does not erase files when an individual deletes them; it simply removes the reference to the file and marks the space it occupied as "free". Microsoft Office 98 applications ignore the logical end of file and thereby include the entire contents of the disk sector in the file. Therefore, if the disk sector has been previously used, that information may be included within the Microsoft Office document. For example, sending a Word 98 document as an attachment can reveal private information from the sender's computer without the sender's knowledge. This situation may pose security and privacy concerns when electronic versions of these documents are mailed as attachments. Opening the file using an ASCII text editor can test the vulnerability. When opening the file using Microsoft Office 98 applications, the additional information is invisible. To prevent extraneous information or data from being included in a Microsoft Office 98 document file, individuals have several options: (1) Apply the patch released from Microsoft. (2) Store the documents on their own separate volume. For an example, use 'Save As' to place your Word document on a newly clean disk volume, such as a new floppy disk. (3) The safest option may be to save the document in RTF format before sending it to others. Microsoft Patch Information PCs with Microsoft Windows 95 running Microsoft Office 95 applications http://support.microsoft.com/support/Kb/articles/q139/4/32.asp Macintosh running Microsoft Office 98 applications: http://www.microsoft.com/macoffice/productinfo/98dl/offi98patch.htm ______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC wishes to acknowledge the contributions of www.macintouch.com and www.macfixit.com for the information contained in this bulletin. ______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC, the Computer Incident Advisory Capability, is the computer security incident response team for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the emergency backup response team for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). CIAC is located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. CIAC is also a founding member of FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, a global organization established to foster cooperation and coordination among computer security teams worldwide. CIAC services are available to DOE, DOE contractors, and the NIH. CIAC can be contacted at: Voice: +1 925-422-8193 FAX: +1 925-423-8002 STU-III: +1 925-423-2604 E-mail: ciac@llnl.gov For emergencies and off-hour assistance, DOE, DOE contractor sites, and the NIH may contact CIAC 24-hours a day. During off hours (5PM - 8AM PST), call the CIAC voice number 925-422-8193 and leave a message, or call 800-759-7243 (800-SKY-PAGE) to send a Sky Page. CIAC has two Sky Page PIN numbers, the primary PIN number, 8550070, is for the CIAC duty person, and the secondary PIN number, 8550074 is for the CIAC Project Leader. Previous CIAC notices, anti-virus software, and other information are available from the CIAC Computer Security Archive. World Wide Web: http://www.ciac.org/ (or http://ciac.llnl.gov -- they're the same machine) Anonymous FTP: ftp.ciac.org (or ciac.llnl.gov -- they're the same machine) Modem access: +1 (925) 423-4753 (28.8K baud) +1 (925) 423-3331 (28.8K baud) CIAC has several self-subscribing mailing lists for electronic publications: 1. CIAC-BULLETIN for Advisories, highest priority - time critical information and Bulletins, important computer security information; 2. SPI-ANNOUNCE for official news about Security Profile Inspector (SPI) software updates, new features, distribution and availability; 3. SPI-NOTES, for discussion of problems and solutions regarding the use of SPI products. Our mailing lists are managed by a public domain software package called Majordomo, which ignores E-mail header subject lines. To subscribe (add yourself) to one of our mailing lists, send the following request as the E-mail message body, substituting ciac-bulletin, spi-announce OR spi-notes for list-name: E-mail to ciac-listproc@llnl.gov or majordomo@tholia.llnl.gov: subscribe list-name e.g., subscribe ciac-bulletin You will receive an acknowledgment email immediately with a confirmation that you will need to mail back to the addresses above, as per the instructions in the email. This is a partial protection to make sure you are really the one who asked to be signed up for the list in question. If you include the word 'help' in the body of an email to the above address, it will also send back an information file on how to subscribe/unsubscribe, get past issues of CIAC bulletins via email, etc. PLEASE NOTE: Many users outside of the DOE, ESnet, and NIH computing communities receive CIAC bulletins. If you are not part of these communities, please contact your agency's response team to report incidents. Your agency's team will coordinate with CIAC. The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) is a world-wide organization. A list of FIRST member organizations and their constituencies can be obtained via WWW at http://www.first.org/. This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor the University of California nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the United States Government or the University of California. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or the University of California, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. LAST 10 CIAC BULLETINS ISSUED (Previous bulletins available from CIAC) I-065: SunOS ufsrestore Buffer Overflow Vulnerability I-066: Vulnerability in Some Implementations of PKCS#1 I-067: AutoStart 9805 Macintosh Worm Virus I-068: File Access Issue With Internet Information Server I-069: Buffer overflows in some POP servers I-070: Distributed DoS Attack Against NIS/NIS+ Networks I-071: OpenVMS loginout Vulnerability I-072: SunOS Solaris Vulnerabilities (libnsl, SUNWadmap) I-073: multiscan ('mscan') Tool I-074: Buffer Overflow in Some Implementations of IMAP Servers -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.0 Business Edition iQCVAwUBNbUawbnzJzdsy3QZAQFJfAP8Cjc3XOxOo26aW26QTuayfBuMslUoM1Ei bOJWdhzUe1jms9hz39HxOWvQnntt/VRB08/u9pvMO6Cr64UbiNFjuiH+RBlrQQ1u gZ6gcGwnJdfC2X2MOjcbXqxPZU8qE78PmO3Aemx+nkG53ME3JsSFZU9ucEMf5z2a I4gn5+JfpR0= =it4E -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ========================FORWARDED TEXT ENDS HERE============================= The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has established a Federal Computer Incident response Capability (FedCIRC) to assist federal civilians agencies in their incident handling efforts by providing proactive and reactive computer security related services. FedCIRC is a partnership among NIST, the Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC), and the CERT* Coordination Center (CERT/CC). If you believe that your system has been compromised, please contact FedCIRC: Telephone: +1 888 282 0870 Email: fedcirc@fedcirc.gov Web Server: http://www.fedcirc.gov/ * Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office The CERT Coordination Center is part of the Software Engineering Institute. The Software Engineering Institute is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. CIAC, the Computer Incident Advisory Capability, is the computer security incident response team for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the emergency backup response team for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). CIAC is located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. CIAC is also a founding member of FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, a global organization established to foster cooperation and coordination among computer security teams worldwide. This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor the University of California nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the United States Government or the University of California. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or the University of California, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.