So let's get this straight
A real-life "snoutbreak" prompts infection on computers?
lol
It's not even as if the file extension is .doc.exe
It's just .exe
People stupid enough to open it deserve to get their machines infected!
Wrongdoers have created a new strain of swine flu-themed malware. A Trojan, containing backdoor and keylogger functionality, poses as a Word document from the US Centre of Disease Control giving information about the disease. The infectious file - Novel H1N1 Flu Situation Update.exe - appears with an icon that makes it look …
if windows 7 defaults to showing file extensions, i can't remember, but it's about due time for this silly security hole to be plugged.
Exploits like this really shouldn't catch anybody out anymore, especially with all the warnings that you get trying to run downloaded executable code these days.
"Using events in the news to spice up malware threats has been the stock in trade of VXers for years"
And inventing news events to spice up government and media activity has been the stock in trade of markets for donkeys.
However, there are new tales to tell and new stock in trades to sell, with some able to foretell, by virtue of their deep packet inspection/analysis of invented news events.
But y'all surely knew that already.:-)
Word does not run executables. If you double-click the attachment *from the email*, then you will run the executable rather than open it. The malware fakes the document opening. Lots of people open attachments by double-clicking them straight from the attachments window. Nothing to do with retarded WP software.
Obviously if the attachment is saved and an attempt is made to open it in a WP program, it will either fail to find it altogether (because it doesn't have a document file extension), or fail to open it because the file format isn't recognised by the WP.
So the answer to your question is "nobody, no, not even Microsoft".