A Virus in WordExcel Document. Beware!

978 followers

8 years ago

Hi Everyone,

If you receive an email from someone you don't know and it contains an attachment (word file, excel file, or zip file), do NOT download it. It may contain a virus or malware.

Earlier this day, I receive an email to my business email (the email that I show in my website). The subject is about resume, with the person says that she is interested to apply for a full time or part time job in my website.

This is weird because I never post any job vacancy in my website. The attachment file is a Word Document (.doc extension), so I think this MAY be a real application and less harmful compared to a zip file or unknown file. The file name is resume.doc (Sounds legit, right?)

I decided to open it (not downloaded it) in my Smartphone with an ThinkFree Office Program. Since this is not an official microsoft office program, it is to be expected if it can't open any office file that contain macros or any non-standard format office file.

Well, it did say the file is 'corrupted' and close again by itself. I decided to search about this and found some information:

http://www.komando.com/happening-now/261169/viruse...

Apparently, this type of hackers will make the Word or Excel file running a macro to execute the virus or malware. However, Microsoft has disabled Word and Excel to run the macro by default. The hackers usually use some tricks so that the receiver will make the macro to be able to run.

For example (as mentioned in the link), there will be a blurred image when you open the infected Word document and you are directed to enable the macro. It claims to make the image 'cleared' if you do that.

Run the macro, and you will be infected with the virus or malware.

Honestly, I am not really know if my phone is OK or not. But, I search that a non-full Word or Excel program (like ThinkFree Office) can't run macro, because they can only be used to view a document (hence, it can't open a document containing macro). So, my phone may be safe (hopefully).

So, beware if you receive any email from unknown people. Even if it's from someone you know, make sure that you are expecting him/her to send that mail to you, or you can ask him/her just in case it not sent because his/her computer has been infected.

In case of posting a job vacancy or maybe receiving proposals from freelancers (that you obviously don't know the person), don't open a zip file because it may contain virus. For word and excel doc, if you decide to open it, do NOT believe if it use some tricks (like above example) to make you enable the macro

Cheers,

Ferdinand