Flaw found in Office encryption

[LostInSpace]

ZDnet: The data protection feature in Microsoft Word and Excel documents has a major flaw that could allow snoopers to decode password-protected files, a security researcher has warned.

[jamotto]

Not surprising, there has never been a secure version of Word or Excel, password breakers exist for every version.

[weegee_101]

Office isn't the only thing that has never been secure. Most Microsoft products, including Windows, are pretty easily broken into. Windows has about 45% of hackers working on it, but the other products, including netmeeting and others, are just poorly secured.

[jamotto]

It is not really limited to Microsoft products. Many other companies have produced software with weak encryption/security as well.

[weegee_101]

Very true.

The probems wouldn't be so bad if so many programmers weren't so lazy when it comes to making sure that their code is secure. Most of the time, vulnerabilities are caused by buffer overflows, which can be minimized by writing proper code to counter a buffer overflow.

Granted, I personally hate making sure my code is secure, but I have teachers here at school who will give us an automatic 'F' if they can quickly and easily break our code. It is just a necessity in today's corporate world.