Microsoft PowerPoint under attack

Microsoft Corp said that hackers are seeking to attack users of its PowerPoint presentation software for Windows PCs and released patches to protect them against the threat.

Microsoft defined the threat as "critical" -- the most severe on the scale by which it ranks vulnerabilities to its software.

Hackers are seeking to exploit the vulnerability in PowerPoint by persuading the intended victim to open a tainted PowerPoint file -- that they either download from a Website or receive in an email, according to Symantec Corp, the world's top maker of security software.

"At that point, the attacker would then have complete control over everything the user's account has permission to do on the system." according to Alfred Huger, a senior researcher with Symantec.