Even if people are
exploiting it
A critical flaw in Excel, which is currently being
exploited by hackers, will not be fixed by Microsoft in the next patch
Tuesday.
Redmond said it will deliver three security updates on Tuesday, one
of them ranked as "critical," but will not fix an Excel flaw even though hackers
have been using it to access company computers.
Last week, Microsoft
downplayed that threat, saying that the company's security experts had seen only
a small number of attacks. Security experts at Symantec said that the
vulnerability is a file format bug in all supported versions, including the
latest version Excel 2007 on Windows and Excel 2008 for the Mac.
While it has
been exploited, Microsoft has probably got bigger fish to fry, the security
experts said.