Mac and office sutie

Question

I'm thinking of getting the MPB - actually today, but looking at the MSOffice site for an update to the Mac ver of Officer - (the web site says this)
Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.2.6 Update
This update fixes vulnerabilities in Office 2004 that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code.
All I hear about MAC's and their ability to have virtually NO virus attacks etc, with the use of office and xp, are we opening the door now using those products?
Thanks for the feedback - this is my first post and, will be my first mac purchase after using the MS machines from the beginning.
again, thanks so much for your education on this matter.

Answer 1

Microsoft has, up until the next version to be released, included a scripting tool called Visual Basic as part of Office. To say that this was insecure was an understatement, however in order to be affected by these kinds of attacks you would need to open a scripted Office document (excel or word, usually) and it would then proceed to exploit your computer. Macs are safe from viruses that spread without your knowledge, however if I give you an application that is designed to delete every file on your hard drive and you execute it and give it your password, it will do just as must damage as a windows version of the same tool. In a sense, one could surmise that you would need to be a complete and utter fool to obtain a virus on a mac (note that I know a university professor who is very well known in the physics community and who also uses macs, he was sent an application from someone [i think a disgruntled student] and ran it, gave it his password, and it did just what i described above).