Blackmoor Vituperative

As if we needed another reason to switch to OpenOffice…

In the wake of at least one targeted attack that exploits a new flaw in Word, Microsoft is advising users to run the application in “safe mode.”

Running Word in the restricted mode will not fix the vulnerability, but it will help block known modes of attack, Microsoft said in a security advisory published late Monday. The software maker is also developing a security update for Word, which should be available on June 13 or sooner, as warranted, the company said.

(from ZDNet, Microsoft advises ‘safe mode’ for Word)

Someone in my family alerted me to this before I read it about it in the trade news, actually. Here is what I told her:

Get your company to switch to OpenOffice, and this sort of thing will cease to be a problem (OpenOffice can create, open, and edit MS Word files, but it is immune to the many, many security vulnerabilities of MS Office).

You would also save your company hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of dollars (depending on how many employees they have).

And if they switch their standard internal document format to OpenDocument, you will no longer be subject to Microsoft’s version extortion — you can be sure that you will be able to open those documents in any OpenDocument-compliant program for many years to come (OpenOffice is the most well-known, but there are several others, and it is a standard format that will be around for a long, long time — Microsoft changes its formats periodically so that people will have to buy upgrades in order to open old documents).

You would be a hero!

I sent a similar email to the “Workplace Productivity” department where I work:

Circuit City currently uses Microsoft Office for its office productivity software. I suggest migrating the entire enterprise to OpenOffice.org. The advantages of OpenOffice.org are:

• more cost-effective (open source = no licensing fees at all, ever)
• minimal user training (user interface is very similar to MS Office)
• increased security (MS Office is a notorious security risk; OpenOffice is open source, which means fewer security flaws, and any that are found are fixed almost immediately)
• backward-compatible (OpenOffice can read and edit existing Circuit City MS Office documents)
• forward-compatible (MS uses closed-source proprietary formats which can and do change with each version of their software; OpenOffice uses the ISO standard OpenDocument format, ensuring that Circuit City’s documents will remain accessible in the future)
• greatly simplifies Sarbanes-Oxley reporting requirements (open source)

The response from both quarters was effectively the same. I can’t say much more about that without insulting my family and the place I work.