If you are using Microsoft Office for Mac, you are out of luck on receiving an important patch to cover up a flaw in PowerPoint. At least, you will have to wait a little while longer for a fix. Microsoft declined to comment about a time frame for the Office for Mac 2004 and 2008 bug fixes and many users are upset over it.
As PCWorld reports, Office for Mac users are still waiting and will have to continue waiting for an important PowerPoint bug fix since Microsoft does not have a patch date set yet.
According to security bulletin MS11-036, “Security updates for Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac, Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, and Open XML File Format Converter for Mac are unavailable at this time. Microsoft will issue updates for these software when testing is complete, to ensure a high degree of quality for their release.” This vulnerability could allow a hacker to take control of a victim’s computer if the user opens up a malicious PowerPoint file. Office for Mac 2004 and Office for Mac 2008 are the software versions affected.
In this past Patch Tuesday, Microsoft released a set of important updates to patch vulnerabilities in PowerPoint 2002, 2003, and 2007 but on the Windows operating system. That same bug still affects Office for Mac 2004 and 2008 respectively. Office 2010 (both for Windows and Mac) are not affected by this bug.
Many users are complaining that Microsoft is leaving Mac users high and dry. Late last year, there was a few vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft Office for Mac, but Microsoft never released a patch until months later. Office 2008 users waited 5 weeks while Office 2004 users waited several months.
Although frustrating for the user, it is understandable to see that Microsoft will take longer to patch an older version of its software. However, what if hackers decide to target older versions of software rather than the newer ones? What happens then?
Further reading: Microsoft, Office for Mac
