Fortinet Discovers Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Web Components

SUNNYVALE, Calif. - July 15, 2009 - Fortinet^® - a market-leading network security provider and worldwide leader of unified threat management (UTM) solutions - today announced that Fortinet Global Security Research Team recently discovered a critical memory corruption vulnerability existing in the ActiveX Controls of Microsoft Office Web Components, which allows a remote attacker to compromise a system through a malicious site. Fortinet customers using the FortiGuard Intrusion Prevention Service (IPS) should be protected against the remote code execution vulnerability.

The vulnerability lies in the default ActiveX Control installed by Microsoft Office. The vulnerability works by allowing a remote attacker to successfully craft a malicious HTML content which can then exploit the vulnerability in Internet Explorer, causing memory corruption and resulting in a remote-code execution vulnerability through a call instruction.

Fortinet customers subscribing to Fortinet's FortiGuard IPS should be protected against this remote code execution vulnerability. Fortinet's IPS is one component of FortiGuard Subscription Services, which also offer comprehensive solutions such as antivirus, Web content filtering and anti-spam capabilities. These services enable protection against threats on both application and network layers. FortiGuard Services are continuously updated by the FortiGuard Global Security Research Team, which enables Fortinet to deliver a combination of multi-layered security intelligence and true zero-day protection from new and emerging threats. These updates are delivered to all FortiGate® appliances, FortiMail™ email security, and FortiClient™ endpoint products. Fortinet strictly follows responsible disclosure guidelines to ensure optimum protection during a threat's lifecycle.

This vulnerability affects the following software: Microsoft Office XP Service Pack 3, Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Office XP Web Components Service Pack 3, Microsoft Office 2003 Web Components Service Pack 3, Microsoft Office 2003 Web Components for the 2007 Microsoft Office system Service Pack 1, Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 Standard Edition Service Pack 3, Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 Enterprise Edition Service Pack 3, Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006 Supportability Update, Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006 Service Pack 1, and Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006.

Microsoft is currently working to develop a security update to address this vulnerability; see Microsoft's advisory and workaround solution: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/973472.mspx. For more information on this vulnerability, please visit http://www.fortiguardcenter.com/advisory/FGA-2009-27.html.

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About Fortinet (www.fortinet.com)
Fortinet is the pioneer and leading provider of ASIC-accelerated unified threat management, or UTM, security systems, which are used by enterprises and service providers to increase their security while reducing total operating costs. Fortinet solutions were built from the ground up to integrate multiple levels of security protection--including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention, VPN, spyware prevention and antispam -- designed to help customers protect against network and content level threats. Leveraging a custom ASIC and unified interface, Fortinet solutions offer advanced security functionality that scales from remote office to chassis-based solutions with integrated management and reporting. Fortinet solutions have won multiple awards around the world and are the only security products that are certified in six programs by ICSA Labs: Firewall, Antivirus, IPSec VPN, SSL VPN, Network IPS, and Antispam. Fortinet is privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California.

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