Microsoft Patches Security Holes in Office 2008 & 2011 for Mac

Microsoft released a pair of critical updates for Office for Mac on Tuesday. Office 2008 12.3.5 and Office 2011 14.2.5 both address security holes in the productivity suites, while the 2011 update includes other bug fixes.

Office 2011

Patch Notes for Office 2008 12.3.5 Update (218.4MB Download):

The Office 2008 for Mac 12.3.5 update improves security. This update includes fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code.

The longer patch notes for Office 2011 14.2.5 Update (102MB Download):

  • This update fixes an issue in which automatic configuration did not work correctly for Outlook.com accounts.
  • This update addresses an issue when importing data from a PST file. If an email message in the PST file contains inline images followed by attachments (in that order), the attachments will be missing from the message after it is imported in Outlook for Mac.
  • This update fixes an issue in which certain kinds of distribution lists were not being recognized correctly as distribution lists and could not be expanded.
  • This update addresses an issue when you use a Gmail account in Mac Outlook 2011 14.2 and later versions. When you move a message between folders, a duplicate of it was incorrectly created in the All Mails folder.
  • This update addresses an issue in which spaces sometimes disappear when pasting content from Word or replying to messages generated in windows Outlook (which uses WordMail as editor). The issue was caused by incorrect parsing of the copied content in Outlook for Mac.
  • This update adds a designated error to inform users when an expired password results in authentication failure. Previously, users were not provided this level of detail when an authentication failure occurred.

If you have Office 2008 or 2011 installed, you can download the update through the Microsoft AutoUpdate app on your Mac. If you prefer to download the update as a standalone file, there are download links in the links above.