WordPad will remain unaffected by the Zero day vulnerability of MS Word

WordPad, which is a simple and free word processor that comes with Windows, has been reported not to be vulnerable to the zero day RTF vulnerability, affecting Word.

Microsoft recently updated its security advisory for MS Word indicating that the Windows WordPad is not vulnerable to the same. It means, WordPad can be continued to be used as a secured workaround for editing and reading RTF documents.

The vulnerability has been noted as a remote code execution vulnerability that gives an attacker access to the system control, whenever a user accesses an infected RTF File on Microsoft Word. All versions of Word are vulnerable to the zero-day bug. Microsoft even commented that the company is aware about the limited, targeted attacks pointing at MS Word 2010. The company meanwhile has not made an announcement about when the fix for this vulnerability will be released or whether the same will be on the regularly-scheduled Patch Tuesday or ‘out of band’.

Also, to note are that April 8^th is the last scheduled patch day for Office 2003, which too is among the vulnerable products.

In addition, it was informed that the Online Versions of MS Word in Office 365 are open to this attack. Microsoft revealed that users of Office 365 are vulnerable to the issue and users can ensure protection by making use of the mitigations presented in Security Advisory 2953095.

RTF files are used as default format on WordPad. Also, users of Windows 7 and Windows 8 can open RTF documents in WordPad and can even save them in Word format, which is .DOCX format. WordPad in the meantime addresses these files as Office Open XML Documents. Files which have been saved by Word as RTF are not open to this recently detected vulnerability.

Microsoft has even unveiled a “Fix it”, which helps in disabling support for the RTF files. So, until a permanent solution or way-out is available, users of Windows can change the default handler for RTF files to WordPad, instead of MS Word.

The author is an experienced Microsoft support specialist who works at SupportMart. The company is a leading name in this scenario known to offer reliable Microsoft Tech Support that can be availed anytime and any day with just one call at the Microsoft technical Support number 1 800 793 7521 toll free.