Microsoft Office temporarily shielded by recent attacks

Reuters

Technology giant Microsoft Corp issued Tuesday a software correction , after warning that hackers exploited a security breach of its Office program group to infect users ' computers with Word documents contaminated .

The software developer said on its website that released the " patch " , known as " Fix It " as a temporary solution until you provide an update that will automatically repair the failure of computers to protect against new threats.

Microsoft became aware of a number " very limited" attacks that exploited the newly discovered vulnerability , mainly in the Middle East and South Asia. The company did not identify the victims , who received emails asking them contaminated open Word documents .

The security breach affects customers using the Office 2003 and Office 2007 , as well as those that are running Office 2010 on Windows XP or Server 2003.

The attacks exploit a flaw undiscovered or zero-day vulnerability in industry jargon , which is usually used only against a limited number of high-value targets in an attempt to keep it a secret .

Typically , when developers of widely used software programs emit a warning for a zero-day bug , hacker groups are quick to reverse engineer the corrections to submit a virus that exploits the same vulnerabilities .