14 August 2006
OpenOffice too has its flaws, just lacks attackers
Researchers in France have tested the security of OpenOffice.org with not so good results. The risk of viruses for people using OpenOffice is as high as or higher than the risk of those using MS Office.
OpenOffice isn't nearly as popular as MS Office so most people don't focus on it to create viruses, making it safe while still having holes in its security. OpenOffice simply hasn't had people trying to break the security so the programmers working on the suite haven't noticed any errors.
The problems come from inadequate security checks and its extreme flexibility.
There is a bright side though, one of the flaws discovered has already been fixed and OpenOffice.org is working on other theoretical flaws that were discovered by the researchers.
OpenOffice isn't nearly as popular as MS Office so most people don't focus on it to create viruses, making it safe while still having holes in its security. OpenOffice simply hasn't had people trying to break the security so the programmers working on the suite haven't noticed any errors.
The problems come from inadequate security checks and its extreme flexibility.
There is a bright side though, one of the flaws discovered has already been fixed and OpenOffice.org is working on other theoretical flaws that were discovered by the researchers.
Labels: openoffice, OSS, vulnerability
