Three fresh issues with OpenOffice surfaced this week - and whilst all 3 are fixed in the latest release, they still pose problems for many unpatched installations.

The three exploits cover most of the major food groups - a buffer overflow in XML parsing, mishandled helpers with a Java applet weakness, and of course a macro vulnerability - after all, no word processor is complete without one!

Much of the effort by security professionals has focused on the front-line - web browsers. As these have become more secure, the "black hats" are using different exploits - hitting the support programs behind the lines - those that were never designed to be fortified against attack. Microsoft's office suite has been targeted often - Open Office's increasing popularity will surely increase the potential for exploit too.