In an exceedingly rare move, Microsoft’s scheduled patch releases for its Office suite of software was incomplete. It did not release the patches it should have to the 2004 and 2008 Mac editions.
“The security updates for Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac, Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac and Open XML File Format Converter for Mac are unavailable at this time,” wrote Microsoft in its security bulletin.
The company did not say why the patches weren’t available, nor did it say when it expected them to be up. Hopefully they will just be rolled
The security bulletin did mention what vulnerabilities there were for the Office for Mac editions, though not in any sort of detail. Every bug that was found could be triggered via “remote code execution,” which is the worst kind of threat possible.
As such, all the bugs were labeled as “important,” the second-highest threat level. There were four such security holes that Microsoft noted.
Some are finding it a bit unnerving that Microsoft told the world there are four significant holes in its Office software, and then turns around and does nothing about it.
It’s very rare for Microsoft to pull such a move. In fact, we can’t think of any time in recent memory, certainly not in the last couple years, where this happened.
Office Mac users should just be extra careful moving forward, and hope that Microsoft gets patches for these known bugs before too long.
