- #MICROSOFT OFFICE 2008 MAC INSTALLER CODE#
- #MICROSOFT OFFICE 2008 MAC INSTALLER PASSWORD#
- #MICROSOFT OFFICE 2008 MAC INSTALLER FREE#
Enter your account password when prompted.While logged in to an admin account, type the following command, as one line, and then press return: sudo chmod -R a-st "/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008" "/Library/Fonts/Microsoft" "/Library/Application Support/Microsoft" "/Library/Automator" (If you don’t have the Special Media Edition of Office 2008, omit “/Library/Automator”.).Mogull notes, however, that the security implications are, for now, theoretical rather than immediate: “The combination of the two issues is problematic, but it’s one of those issues we need to bring to light, not panic about quite yet.”įor its part, Microsoft takes the two issues seriously, says Geoff Price, product unit manager for the company’s Macintosh Business Unit.
#MICROSOFT OFFICE 2008 MAC INSTALLER CODE#
By potentially allowing a non-privileged user to change system-wide files, it could allow an attacker to cross trust boundaries and execute code in another user’s context.” “This should not have occurred considering how rigid Security Development Life Cycle is. “It’s not good and a clear violation of Microsoft’s standards,” said analyst Rich Mogull, who writes about security issues for What you can doĪlthough Office 2008 is the first major Microsoft product to use Apple’s Installer system, security experts were surprised by these mistakes. The only Office 2008 files that actually need to be executable are the actual programs, as well as folders. Many users won’t notice this situation, but it potentially poses a security issue, as it could provide a non-admin user the ability to modify files that would normally be accessible only to administrators.įor example, if a security vulnerability were to be discovered in one of the more than 42,000 files installed by Office 2008, such a vulnerability could be easier to exploit if the file is executable.
Similarly, if you’ve set up the second account on your Mac as a non-admin account for your own everyday use-ostensibly to prevent yourself from accidentally screwing things up-this “safety” account will have the power to delete or otherwise alter the Office 2008 installation. (The installation for the Special Media Edition of Office 2008 also creates the folder /Library/Automator if it didn’t already exist, and gives UID 502 ownership of that folder, as well.) For instance, the user could replace a legitimate file with something else and even make that file executable (see
#MICROSOFT OFFICE 2008 MAC INSTALLER FREE#
However, if you set up the second account on your Mac without administrative privileges, that account will still end up with free rein over all of Office’s components, and thus the ability to delete or alter /Library/Fonts/Microsoft, /Library/Application Support/Microsoft, and /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008, as well as the contents of these folders. If UID 502 is an administrative account on your Mac, this may not be an issue, as you’ve presumably given that account admin status for a reason.
This occurs regardless of which user account runs the installer, and regardless of the administrative status of UID 502. Instead, the installation package installs almost all of its files-and their enclosing folders-with the owner set to user ID 502. Pointed out in one blog entry, the Office 2008 installation doesn’t do any of these things.
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