Zero-day attack targets Microsoft Word

In a security advisory issued yesterday, Microsoft warned users of a zero-day attack that is initiated when a user opens a Word document containing malicious code. The affected versions of Word are as follows: Word 2000, Word 2002, Office Word 2003, Word Viewer 2003, Word 2004 for Mac and Word X for Mac. For now, Microsoft is advising users to "exercise extreme caution when opening unsolicited attachments from both known and unknown sources." The company has not yet announced whether a patch will be available in time for next week's "Patch Tuesday".

For more on the attack:
- see this security advisory on Microsoft's TechNet