Word Macros target Macs

This is interesting. It talks about malicious word macros targeting macs now. It seems to be coming from a Russian site. (Sigh... first it was the elections and now our Macs!!! ;D )

http://thehackernews.com/2017/02/ma...Security+Blog)&_m=3n.009a.1429.fe0ao06xsz.uhe

One other thing in the article refers to fake update/download popups - flash player, bit defender adware removal tool. The article indicates that even dismissing the popup still gets your data harvested.

Lisa

As usual the MacDownloader malware, which had very little impact, is still referred to as a 'virus'. Scares folks into buying AV software.

I talked about this briefly on the chat Sunday night. See show notes here.

MS word macros have had the potential for some degree of problems or another for years. In the pre OS X days there was a shareware program called Disinfectant. One story about why the authors stopped producing the program couldn't keep up with the proliferation of Word based macros. One of the first things I do for Word and Excel is to turn off automatic execution of Macros (Preferences>Security).

I am going to try to upload the show again tonight. I've tried at least twice since Sunday and had it hang each time.

It's been so long since I've used macros in Word that I forgot how to turn the auto execution off. I thought at one time that it was off by default and that you had to turn it on. I may be thinking of the Windows version since I have not had to use macros in the Mac version of Word.

I just checked my "Tools" in Word 2011 and macros plus Visual Basic are definitely turned on. I just tested it by bringing up a blank macro.

I've never run Word macros or had anyone send me a document with them included. I used to run a few Excel macros that basically pulled a subset of information from a master sheet and pasted the associated data into a template in the same workbook. It had a few other associated macros that sorted the list by various criteria but I built all the macros myself is I wasn't worried about infected macros unless I had picked them up when I ran them on the PC.

That is an excellent tip Sly. I use to turn off macros in Windows but over the years I had forgotten as I never use them.

Lisa