to begin with

Information Technology and Telecommunications:

August 11, IDG News Service — Researchers: OpenOffice.org security insufficient. With
Microsoft Corp.'s Office suite now being targeted by hackers, researchers at the French
Ministry of Defense say users of the OpenOffice.org software may be at even greater risk from
computer viruses. "The general security of OpenOffice is insufficient," the researchers wrote in
a paper entitled, "In−depth analysis of the viral threats with OpenOffice.org documents." The
paper describes four proof−of−concept viruses that illustrate how maliciously encoded macros
and templates could be created to compromise systems running the open−source software. "The
viral hazard attached to OpenOffice.org is at least as high as that for the Microsoft Office suite,
and even higher when considering some...aspects," they wrote. The report was written by
researchers at the French Ministry of Defense's Signal Corps and was published in the Journal
in Computer Virology, a Paris−based academic journal for computer scientists.
Full−text report: http://www.springerlink.com/content/2834v27846247480/fulltex t.pdf
Source: http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/08/11/HNopenofficesecuri ty_1.html