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Security Bulletin

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS00-002 - Critical

Patch Available for "Malformed Conversion Data" Vulnerability

Published: January 20, 2000

Version: 1.0

Originally Posted: January 20, 2000

Summary

Microsoft has released a patch that eliminates a security vulnerability in a utility that converts Japanese, Korean and Chinese Word 5 documents to more-recent formats. The primary shipment vehicles for the utility are the Japanese, Korean and Chinese (both Simplified and Traditional) versions of Word and PowerPoint for Windows. (A comprehensive listing of affected products is provided below) The vulnerability could allow arbitrary code to be executed on a machine that opened a specially modified Word 5 document using an affected version of the utility.

Frequently asked questions regarding this vulnerability can be found at https://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/fq00-002.mspx

General Information

Issue

Microsoft Office includes a conversion utility that converts older Word documents to more recent formats. The conversion utility for Word 5 documents in East Asian languages (Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese) has an unchecked buffer. By using a hexadecimal editor to insert specially malformed information into a document, a malicious user could cause Word to run code of his or her choice when the document was opened using an affected version of the converter.

A Word 5 converter installs by default as part of Word and PowerPoint, and can be installed at user behest as part of a converter pack. However, the vulnerability affects only the East Asian language versions of the converter, and only the Windows versions of them. No other language versions of the converter are affected, and no version of the converter for Macintosh is affected.

Affected Software Versions

  • Microsoft Converter Pack 2000 for Windows
  • Microsoft Office 2000 for Windows with Multilanguage pack
  • Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) versions of:
    • Microsoft Word 97, 98 and 2000 for Windows, which is available as a standalone product or as part of:
      • Office 97, Office 97 Powered by Word 98, Office 2000 for Windows
      • Works Suite 2000 for Windows
    • Microsoft PowerPoint 97 and 2000 for Windows, which is available as a standalone product or as part of:
      • Office 97, Office 97 Powered by Word 98, Office 2000 for Windows

Vulnerability Identifier: CVE-2000-0088

Patch Availability

U.S.:

Japan:

Korea:

China:

Taiwan:

Hong Kong:

More Information

Please see the following references for more information related to this issue.

Obtaining Support on this Issue

This is a fully supported patch. Information on contacting Microsoft Technical Support is available at https://support.microsoft.com/contactussupport/?ws=support.

Revisions

  • January 20, 2000: Bulletin Created.

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