Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (949029) This security update resolves several privately reported and publicly reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Excel that could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Excel file. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

This security update is rated Critical for Microsoft Office Excel 2000 Service Pack 3 and rated Important for Excel 2002 Service Pack 3, Excel 2003 Service Pack 2, Excel Viewer 2003, Excel 2007, Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats, Office 2004 for Mac, and Office 2008 for Mac. For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in this section.

This security update addresses these vulnerabilities by modifying the way that Microsoft Excel performs validations when opening Excel files. For more information about the vulnerability, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) subsection for the specific vulnerability entry under the next section, Vulnerability Information.

This security update also addresses the vulnerability first described in Microsoft Security Advisory 947563.

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Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Excel, Security, Vulnerability, Exploit, Remote Code Execution, Security Update