Check Point Advisories

Preemptive Protection against Microsoft Excel Macro Validation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (MS08-014)

Check Point Reference:	CPAI-2008-040
Date Published:	11 Mar 2008
Severity:	High
Last Updated:	Tuesday 01 January, 2008
Source:	Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-014
Industry Reference:	CVE-2008-0081
Protection Provided by:
Who is Vulnerable?	Microsoft Excel 2000 Microsoft Excel 2002 Microsoft Excel 2003 prior to SP3 Microsoft Excel 2004 for Mac Microsoft Excel Viewer 2003 Microsoft Office 2000 Microsoft Office 2003 prior to SP3 Microsoft Office XP
Vulnerability Description	A memory corruption vulnerability has been identified in Microsoft Excel. Microsoft Excel is a popular spreadsheet application. A remote attacker could exploit this issue via a malformed Excel file. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may allow execution of arbitrary code on a target system.
Update/Patch Avaliable	Apply patches: Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-014
Vulnerability Details	The vulnerability is due to a memory corruption error in Microsoft Excel that fails to properly validate macro information when loading malformed Excel files. An attacker can exploit this flaw via a specially crafted Excel file to take complete control over a vulnerable system.