Bitform Discover Identifies Hidden Data in MS Office Documents
Bitform Discover is designed to provide end users and IT/Security professionals with a high-performance means of quickly scanning file repositories for sensitive information that may be unwittingly exposed to third parties when files are published or shared. The product produces comprehensive reports that detail the potentially sensitive data elements found in Word, PowerPoint and Excel files.
Metadata is the information about the file, which may include author names, email addresses, company name, document summary information, and other details commonly found in "Properties" under the File menu in the Microsoft Office applications. Hidden and sensitive information can include deleted text, printer names, qualified local and network paths, SQL query strings (including database names), routing slip details, sensitive hyperlinks, comments, and redlines (tracked changes), to name a few.
As part of their research, Bitform analyzed more than 20,000 publicly-available documents found on the Web. Despite being published for public consumption, 97% of the Word documents contained author history, 74.8% contained paths (showing the location where the file was saved by the author), and 20.7% contained network share names (exposing corporate network naming conventions). Forty percent of the PowerPoint presentations contained earlier versions of modified slides, which are not visible to the author when using the PowerPoint application. Almost a third of the Excel files contained network share names.
Written in Java, the product runs on multiple platforms and does not require the native Microsoft Office applications to analyze files.
Source: press release
See also:
OOoFf! Bringing OpenOffice.org and Firefox to Retail Channels
KOffice 1.3.3 Available In Welsh
How to Avoid Security Holes
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Posted 01/19/05 | Filed under: Security |
