<p>Until Microsoft discloses - and patches - a new Word vulnerability on Tuesday, anyone using Microsoft's Outlook email program and its Word word processor should be even more cautious than usual.</p><p>That's because one of Microsoft's security bulletins for December includes a "Critical" vulnerability for Microsoft Word, one of the few times Microsoft has attached the "Critical" tag to a Word issue. Waiting For Patch Tuesday</p><p>Microsoft's standard practice is to give a heads-up on the number of vulnerabilities it plans to fix on "Patch Tuesday," the second Tuesday of every month. On that day, Microsoft releases the patches themselves, and discloses the vulnerabilities that they fix. (If it revealed the problems before providing the solutions, of course, black-hat hackers could exploit the hole.) So at this point, we don't know what exactly what problems the current, unpatched version of Word hides.</p><p>In October, however, Microsoft disclosed a hole in Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Word 2010 that allowed an attacker to take over a PC just by viewing an infected RTF file. That was a significant vulnerability; most modern attacks are triggered when a user views a Web page, or at least clicks a link. The October vulnerability was much more passive, and could be triggered just by idly scrolling down your inbox. Once your machine was infected, the attacker would have the same administrative rights as you do - and if you run as administrator, the attacker could completely control your machine.</p><p><a href="http://readwrite.com/2012/12/10/alert-be-on-your-guard-against-microsoft-word-worms-in-your-email">Keep reading...</a></p>