AppSense Discloses View on Newly Announced Vulnerability in Microsoft Word: Eliminate Dependence on Prior Knowledge of Vulnerabilities.

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- What:

A previously unknown vulnerability in Microsoft Word is now being exploited (see news article http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6112265.html)

AppSense's view:

The Word 2000 vulnerability announced today is the latest in a series of vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office applications. Searching for new vulnerabilities has become a profitable area for criminal hackers. A serious vulnerability can be sold many times over. Some sell for tens of dollars to a large market and are usually discovered quickly. Others are sold for tens of thousands to a more select market and can exist for long periods of time. Recently someone even tried to sell an Excel vulnerability on eBay. This market for vulnerabilities is a recent phenomenon and is part of a whole supply chain that has sprung up to feed computer crime.

An increasingly common characteristic of this vulnerability is that it has exploit code created and in use for a substantial time prior to there being public information about the details of where the vulnerability exists. Similarly to the Microsoft Windows Media File vulnerability disclosed in December 2005, these vulnerabilities have been found by researchers who kept the knowledge secret and used it themselves for an undetectable attack, or sold it to others.

Many vulnerabilities are present in products but not acknowledged and hence largely unknown. A single internet based project, called the Zero Day Initiative http://www.zerodayinitiative.com/details.html, lists 29 undisclosed vulnerabilities it is sitting on. Twenty four of those are rated as a High Severity.

"This is a classic race between good and evil. Will the bad guys exploit a vulnerability before the good guys can find and fix it? The only solution to this problem is for security to become more proactive and less dependant on prior knowledge of vulnerabilities," Martin Ingram, VP Product Management, AppSense.

About AppSense:

AppSense is the leading provider of application-level endpoint security solutions for the enterprise - proactively protecting desktops, laptops, servers, virtual systems and embedded devices against all forms of malicious software and preserving endpoint environments in their optimal state to ensure system integrity. AppSense software secures thousands of organizations and is installed on hundreds of thousands of desktops and servers across the world in mid-to-large organizations and across many industries such as Public Sector, Finance, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare.

AppSense solutions automatically and proactively block all unknown or untrusted applications from running on an endpoint without ever having to know that a vulnerability even exists, or the source or nature of the application (i.e., whether it is an unauthorized software or malicious software) or if malicious, what its signature file looks like or how it behaves. It controls when/where approved applications can execute, what functions within those applications users can access, and can even control access to endpoint devices, like USB memory sticks, which can be used to compromise an enterprise's critical data.

AppSense operates through a world-wide channel of certified partners with offices in the US, UK, Germany, The Netherlands and Australia. For more information visit: www.appsense.com