Microsoft Office is a productivity software suite whose documents, add-ins, and vulnerabilities can expose data and compromise enterprise systems.
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Background for this topic.
Microsoft Office is a suite of productivity applications including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access, delivered as desktop software and, in many environments, through Microsoft 365 services. Its files are common in business workflows, so Office security advisories, file-format changes, and configuration guidance can affect a broad range of users and systems.
Office documents can carry malicious macros, embedded objects, templates, or links, and vulnerabilities in an application or document parser may enable code execution when a file is opened or previewed. Useful controls include timely patching, restricting macros to trusted, signed sources, using Protected View, and inspecting attachment and download provenance. Cloud use adds security responsibilities around identity, external sharing, delegated application access, and retention of sensitive documents; monitoring sign-ins and sharing events helps distinguish an exploited endpoint from an account or configuration problem.
The Russia-linked state-sponsored threat actor known as APT28 (aka UAC-0001) has been attributed to attacks exploiting a newly disclosed security flaw in Microsoft Office as part of a campaign codenamed Operation Neusploit