Despite claims that OpenOffice has only one bug, which has subsequently been fixed, researchers from the French Ministry of Defense says that the numerous security flaws found in Microsoft Office applications are "easily transportable to OpenOffice," reports News.com.

The report disputes claims by the open-source community that OpenOffice is more secure than Microsoft Office products.

"The viral hazard attached to OpenOffice.org is at least as high as that for the Microsoft Office suite, and even higher when considering some... aspects. This suite is up to now still vulnerable to many potential malware attacks," the researchers wrote.

The report, published in the Paris-based Journal of Computer Virology, describes four examples of how faulty code can infest OpenOffice and release hazards. The weaknesses are focused around issues such as the use of zip files, and in particular the use of macro programming procedures and templates.

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