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Microsoft To Release 4 Critical Office Patches Tuesday
Microsoft announced that it will be releasing four patches, all rated critical because they allow remote-code execution, and all involving Microsoft Office in some way.
In today's March Patch Tuesday preview, Microsoft
announced
that it will be releasing four patches, all rated critical because they allow
remote-code execution, and all involving Microsoft Office in some way.
As is typical with its preview announcements, the company didn't release details
on the exact flaws the patches will fix, but did detail the systems affected.
The first patch is for Excel and is rated critical -- Microsoft's highest rating
-- for Excel 2000 SP3, but is rated only as important for other versions of
Excel, including Excel 2003 (although SP3 of 2003 is not affected) and Excel
2007, as well as Office 2004 and 2008 for Mac.
The second patch is critical for the following versions of Outlook: Outlook 2000 SP3, Outlook 2002 SP3, Outlook 2003 SP2 and SP3, and Outlook 2007.
The third patch is critical only for Microsoft Office 2000 SP3. The patch is
rated important for several other programs, including Office XP SP3 and Office
for Mac 2004.
The final patch planned for this month's batch is rated critical for Microsoft
Office Web Components 2000. According to Microsoft, updates have already been
released to fix the flaw (whatever it might be) in several Microsoft products,
including Visual Studio .NET, BizTalk Server, Office 2000 and XP.
Microsoft is also planning to release three "high-priority, non-security updates" through Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) and Windows Update.
As always, Microsoft cautioned that the information released today is preliminary
and may change before the official release Tuesday.
About the Author
Becky Nagel serves as vice president of AI for 1105 Media specializing in developing media, events and training for companies around AI and generative AI technology. She also regularly writes and reports on AI news, and is the founding editor of PureAI.com. She's the author of "ChatGPT Prompt 101 Guide for Business Users" and other popular AI resources with a real-world business perspective. She regularly speaks, writes and develops content around AI, generative AI and other business tech. She has a background in Web technology and B2B enterprise technology journalism.