Microsoft Office v. X for Macintosh Network PID Checker Denial of Service Vulnerability

Microsoft Office v. X for Macintosh Network PID Checker Denial of Service Vulnerability

Microsoft Office v. X contains a network-aware anti-piracy mechanism that detects other copies of Office v. X using the same Product Identifier (PID) on the network. If it detects a duplicate PID on the network, Office will shut down.

It is possible to send a certain type of malformed announcement to the PID Checker service that will cause the service to fail. If the service fails, Office will also shut down, possibly resulting in a loss of any unsaved data.

Restarting Office will allow normal operation to resume.