Well it appears Microsoft is scrambling to get a rather large and nasty hole in MS Word fixed but until such time as they do they’re asking you to run Word in SafeMode*.
eWeek: In a pre-patch security advisory, Microsoft said the flaw can be exploited when a user opens a specially crafted Word file using a malformed object pointer.
This corrupts system memory in such a way that an attacker could execute arbitrary code.
The flaw can be exploited via the Web or via e-mail but, in both scenarios, an attacker would have to trick a user into opening the rigged Word file.
*Running a program in SafeMode removes some of the more robust features users have come to look forward to using.