A break-in targeting State Department computers worldwide last summer occurred after a department employee in Asia opened a mysterious e-mail that quietly allowed hackers inside the U.S. government's network.

The mysterious State Department e-mail appeared to be legitimate and included a Microsoft Word document with material from a congressional speech related to Asian diplomacy, Reid said. By opening the document, the employee activated hidden software commands establishing what Reid described as backdoor communications with the hackers.

Compromise at the State Dept due to a Word document? Great job Microsoft...

Weren't they saying something recently about malformed Word documents crashing Word not being a problem? Makes you wonder how many of those "not a problem" bugs can result in situations like this...

State Department got mail, and got owned - Yahoo/AP