Hackers attack Microsoft Office Access with an oddball tactic

By Microsoft Subnet on Wed, 12/12/07 - 4:28pm.

If you haven't double-checked that your employees' installations of Internet Explorer, Outlook and Outlook Express are blocking files with a .MDB extension, time to make sure. The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team is warning users about an attack involving Microsoft Access Database (MDB) files. It is odd that hackers have been using MDB files to launch an attack. Most browsers and client e-mail applications block MDB files by default, and yet this attack seems to have been successful enough to make it onto the US-CERT 's radar, reports a story from the IDG News Service.

A flaw in the Microsoft Office Access database allows hackers to use these files to install malware, said US-CERT. Criminals execute the attack by sending specially crafted Microsoft Access Database (MDB) files to victims.

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Julie Bort is the editor of Microsoft Subnet and Network World's Online Community Editor. She also writes the Open Source Subnet blog and is the editor responsible for the Cisco Subnet and Open Source Subnet web sites. If you have an idea for a blog, or a news tip on Microsoft, Cisco or Open Source technologies, contact her at jbort@nww.com, 970-482-6454 or follow Julie on Twitter @Julie188.

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