MS security flaw pulled from auction on eBay

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 12 Dec 2005 at 12:44

Microsoft's crack team of counterfeit scouts must have been in for a shock if they were scouring eBay recently and came across a certain item selling for around $60.

The online auction site last week pulled an auction for a security vulnerability in Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet program, offered by a seller under the moniker 'Fearwall'.

The flaw had apparently been reported to Microsoft on 6 December, but has yet to be addressed by the company. The problem is reported to lie in the way the application handles certain types of data and affect all versions of the program.

A starting bid of 1 cent was described as a fair price for Microsoft products by the seller, who also offered a discount to Microsoft staff who quoted the reference 'LINUXRULZ'.

Microsoft has said that it is not aware of any attacks using the flaw described in the listing and that it is working with eBay on deciding the appropriate action to take with the seller.